This Morning 2/12/12

Bicycles.  It's such a musical word and evokes such a light-hearted feeling.  Although, not in the singular so much as the plural.

To say "bicycle" is utilitarian and reagent-like.  As if one ought to be adhering to a strict regimen of time-keeping, dieting or maintaining environmental standards imposed by MoveOn or another lefty-centric PAC like that!  "Bicycle to work, bicycle for leisure, take your bicycle instead of your carbon-noxious car, bicycle for health, " If you live in Boulder, CO or Portland, OR, or Minneapolis, the #1 most bicycle-friendly city in the U.S., you are already familiar with this cultural ethic.  And it is just that - an ethic - to bicycle. 

Recently I found an ad on Craigslist for a rented room 3.2 miles (that's about 5 km for the metric-minded) outside Boulder city limits.  The website for this eco-friendly house stated they give cash-rental credits each time someone rides a bicycle into the city as opposed to cash-rental penalties for each carbon-producing, gas-guzzling trip in a vehicle. How do you rate someone with a Prius?  Just a question.   The theoretical idea itself is brilliant, however, the level of religiosity of this system is a bit extreme.  If three people go in the same car, do they split the penalty or is everyone penalized singularly?  I don't think micro-managing others is the answer to climate change.  I'm also not sure that imposing one's ethic upon others for financial gain doesn't reek of some form of cultural classism.

Back to bicycles.  I believe in bicycles.  Two or more together meandering a windy country road in search of nothing except the experience of common spacial and emotional connectivity with the outdoors.  It's different than a walk.  Walks demand intimacy between the two, whereas bicycles are shared, simultaneous independence.  Synchronized and mechanically-sound, like a train or a flock of Canadian Geese heading south.   The requirements of bicycles demand attention to the others.  One false turn could set off a chain reaction of disastrous proportions.

Perhaps that is the true reason for the musicality of the word, bicycles.  Like a sonorous, orchestral symphony with perfect cadence, the shared sympathetic and harmonic overtones sound remarkably like a unison chorus, creating true harmony in motion.