Geared Up

Just came across this article, by Bill Reynolds, from the Walrus archives - it was sent around "for everyone who's getting their bike out for the first time this year" on their Twitter feed. It's long, elegaic, and lovely - if you've got some time to do some reading (about 8 screens) it's well worth it. Be prepared for some spooky accident descriptions, though. The article is, in essence, a tour of the danger of cycling and why it doesn't stop some people.

This might be the key line of the whole article: a quote from Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman: “The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycles as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.”