Riding a bicycle must be one of the strangest experiences in the world. We are so inured, so accustomed, so oblivious, that we -- all of us, me too -- are unaware of the wonder.
Just think about it. You are sitting -- yes, basically, that's what you are doing -- you are sitting. Then, as you would in a playful mood. you move your legs up and down--and suddenly, miraculously, the ground is moving beneath you at an unbelievably rapid rate.
It takes a great deal of concentration -- a concerted effort to concentrate, to see -- to be aware of the wonder-full, unbelievable thing that is happening. This is a miracle. This is an anti-gravity machine -- a gravity defying machine. Somehow, your whole body has been elevated, has been suspended a few feet above the ground-suddenly you are skimming above the ground.
Isn't this a miracle, a veritable walking on water? Perhaps a better comparison is to hydroplaning. You are shooting out jets of air that keep you floating a few feet above the water, and you move forward at great speed. On a bicycle, wheels of rubber become your only contact with terra firma--and as long as you pedal up and down, the wheels propel you forward, your body remains mid-air, suspended above terra very firma, a fact we bicycle riders know because we sometimes abruptly meet terra firma -- and it is far firmer than we are. We break: city streets are particularly unyielding.
Many mechanically minded people speak of the bicycle as one of the most energy efficient of all vehicles. With a bare minimum of effort, pedal power is converted into energy. In the case of a bicycle, the energy is converted into miles of distance -- but that pedal power can run almost any engine -- you could light your house, run a television. Pedal power is miraculous, miraculously efficient too.
I am telling all of you all this because every once in awhile -- for only a few seconds -- I am suddenly aware -- I become aware -- of the marvellous thing travel by bicycle is: I am flying -- three feet above the ground -- I glide like a marvellous guided missile -- and I the guy who guides the missile, who makes the missile, and me on it, glide over ground.
I know I cannot go as fast as a car goes, and on certain days I desperately want to go faster. I have, on the bicycle, whispered to myself -- faster, faster. But I know I can't go much faster, and deep down I know I go fast enough for most purposes. I know I could not run anywhere near as fast as I bike, nor could I run as effortlessly, as easily, as I bike. It is the most efficient conversion of human power to some other kind of power, and it gives me, and all others, the ability to glide, three feet above the ground, at speeds of ten to fifty miles an hour. Bicycles are exhilarating -- a personal triumph over air, over space, over gravity.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein