Cycles
A bicycle bell tinkled and I looked up and saw a Dutchman in a knit cap coming toward me. As he pedaled by, a fuzzy white head popped up from his bike basket. It was a terrier, chin up, ears perked forward, head tilted curiously to one side. Easy-riding Rover, I thought. The dog was probably enjoying the moment as much as I was.
The above is from an article in the LA Times Travel section today, “Taking Holland for a spin”. My wife Denyse is of Dutch extraction — I’ll have to take her to the Old Country some day. ;)
Robert Pirsig near the beginning of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance relates being in the environment instead of being in a metal box with picture windows:
You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
Same thing on a bicycle. In fact, with all respect to Pirsig, I believe you’re even more in your environment without the motor noise, not to mention how in touch you are with every rise and fall of the road.
But there is no real debate, because no matter which kind of two-wheeler you’re on, it’s better than “watching TV” —
On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it’s right there, so blurred you can’t focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness.
Sounds like being present in the moment doesn’t it? Sound familiar?
Bicycle nirvana
Back in Holland…
[The dog’s] master and I were bicycling through the countryside about 25 miles southwest of Amsterdam, watching Holland’s famous flower fields flash by. The terrain was flat, the air crisp and clear, the scenery a splash of dazzling yellow and green. Acres of bright daffodils stretched in every direction. I felt as though I had found bicycle nirvana.
Perhaps I had. With 13 million bicycles, the Netherlands […] has twice as many bikes as cars and nearly as many bicycles as people. An 11,000-mile system of bike paths, many of which are separate from highways, crisscrosses a nation so small and flat that it’s easy to use bicycles to transport people, groceries, even terriers.
“And we was born to ride”
In my “Shifting Gears” post last Monday, I linked to the Times story of the same name, which had this quote:
It’s smoggy. It’s congested. But actually, L.A. is a great place to ride, [Kastle] Lund says. “Los Angeles is relatively flat, has beautiful weather and the destinations are relatively close together,” she says. “What makes Los Angeles seem onerous to get around is the traffic. But when you ride your bike, you don’t have to deal with 10 or 15 minutes to find a parking spot or sitting through three cycles at a light.”
Just imagine the possibilities…
“When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.” — H.G. Wells
