I'm perfectly serious about this. If you have to think about the Way Forward, how do you construct an understanding of cycling as a cultural narrative? How do you think about the future of cycling? Where is your start point?
To throw a pebble in the oil, culturally inscribed contexts run deep in this demi paradise vis bicycle balancing. I'm of the canvas dangler persuasion. Mismatched socks, stripey acrylic, toe strap, bottle dynamo, granny geared. It's an incomplete narrative admittedly promising misty dawns and moonlit toil over a Paul Nash landscape and full consummation of the idyll is rare. Mostly it's just sweat and sore knees. My beginning and end. Ride as reverie.
The bicycle's chain and wheels are continuously moving forward but never escape their cyclic nature and always return to where their motion starts. The bicycle for Samuel Beckett seems to have been an infinity machine. Cycling enthusiasts know that of all moving animals and machines, the bicycle has been scientifically proven to be the most efficient. Mankind never came closer to the old dream of a perpetuum mobile than with this fascinating two-wheel machine. Weather and terrain permitting, a bicycle and its rider can stay in motion for hours on end without exhausting all energies.Cartesian because in another explaination Beckett saw the bicycle as the perfect example of Descartes' mind body dichotomy. The cyclist's mind is free to think and wonder whilst his body, as if a separate entity, continues its mechanical automatic exersions.Free your mind.....ride a bike.
To be honest I'm not the slightest bit interested in constructing a narrative because I don't believe that in itself, it will encourage any one to take up cycling. In my opinion "our" (as in all cyclists) time would be better spent trying to get new bums on saddles because I firmly believe that the more cyclists there are on the roads then the less need there will be for such things as narratives. Good luck with your navel gazing! Seriously, I suspect I'm not the right person to contribute as I don't see myself as a "cyclist". Riding a bike is just one of the ways in which I enjoy myself.
Where are we going? Where we've been.
