Human Powered Exaltation

Dreaming of Flight on Two Wheels

I saw my first bicycle the other day, in 40-degree weather with piles of dirty snow on the streets, and runnels of meltwater seeping into the drains. I was driving, he was pedaling the other way, a man braced against the elements. He rode a yellow bike with fenders, eloquent of spring.

There is something grandly anticipatory about seeing the season’s first bicycle. March usually brings them out, and not February—and certainly not a February like the one we’ve been having, a godless onslaught from the darker angels of our weather. And yet I saw not one but two, the second soon after the first, as if this challenge were better faced in company than alone. It was better than seeing my first robin. And aren’t we ready for it.

If it were later in the year, or the weather better, they would be the heralds of happy flights of bicycles spinning down the residential streets and stretching out along the county roads in their Lycra togs. Some of them would be on their way somewhere, but most would be out just for the delight of flying in the open air with the sounds and scents of the world around them.

I bring this vision of flight to you now as a mid-winter answer to the horror of current events. I’m with H. G. Wells on these machines: “Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.”

The bicycle! An amazing concept of transportation and a personal getaway machine. It occupies several positions in the mind’s understanding. As soon as you tire of it as a toy, you can use it as transportation. When you tire of it as transportation you can use it as a fitness device. And after that, you can use it as a toy again.

I take it one step further. I consider them also works of art. I have a friend who displayed a favorite bike, a vintage Colnago, on his living room wall, and did it deliberately as a presentation and not at all as an answer to limited garage space. If I had a living room wall I would do that same.

I know people who adjourn to their bicycle-stuffed basements, filled after a lifetime of tinkering with the things, in order to breathe the free air of personal liberation that bicycles represent. You cannot mourn lost liberty with a bicycle in the room. You cannot decry the loss of agency with a well-adjusted bicycle within your control.

They take up little space. They rest quietly against a wall when not in use. If necessary they break down neatly and fit into an automobile, or hang off its rear, or ride on its roof.

And talk about fluidity of motion. When you ride it, there is nothing so agile as one of these machines. They ride easily in spaces designed both for pedestrians and automobiles, and are at home in both places.

I learned to ride a bike at about age 5, and it’s a lucky thing I didn’t disappear at that moment forever, and be heard of only later from the distant towns and faraway places, the Magnificent Flying Baby. For as soon as I realized that continued travel in a straight line brought me a change of perspective, I was gone, no doubt to my parents’ consternation, though I think parents had much less consternation to spread around in those days.

I was gone for hours, sometimes, and somehow this turned out not to be a forbidden activity. Later, I was gone for days, and no more was I reproached for it. In adulthood this plan has continued, as much as possible, with multi-day rides along quiet roads, and through the Pine Barrens of South Jersey and upon the paved routes of the Rails-to-Trails network.

At least until recently, the whole system was becoming friendlier to bicycles. Lately the Department of Transportation, in keeping with the slash-it-all mentality of the government in general, has gone a bit sour on money for bicycle trails. But with any luck funding will return and more former railroad rights of way will be converted.”

I think it would be good for the country. I would certainly be good for me and my friends, and for anyone who longs to fly with their own wings.