The Existential Bicycle

Bonjour cycling philos! Welcome to my new column, The VeloDrone, in which I hope to examine cycling from the bottom up, so to speak.

"If the bicycle did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it." Thus spoke yours truly, many years before the bicycle was in fact invented. In those days I used to go by the name Voltaire. Why don't you get on your bicycle, Voltaire? my jealous and ignorant enemies would jeer. Just you wait, I would reply.

Yes, today, my friends, the bicycle exists. And for what purpose? You may answer that the bicycle exists for getting from A to B. But I ask you then to consider the case of a woman who keeps a bicycle in her dining room.

I know such a woman. In her dining room she keeps a green bicycle leaning against the wall. She never rides the bicycle. Occasionally she moves it outside for the day ( in the summer) and props it against a wall. Or she wheels it into the living room ( in the winter) where it rests against a wooden cabinet topped with books, and prevents access to them. This is done when there are visitors expected and there will not be room for everyone at the table if the bicycle remains where it is. She hopes ( in the winter) that none of her guests will need to refer to a book.

The woman likes the bicycle, which belongs to her daughter who left it behind when she went to live in London. Sometimes when she moves it she notices the tyres have gone down. The first time she noticed that the tyres had gone down she asked her son to pump them up. The second time she decided to let them be until her daughter came home for a holiday.

Once, her daughter had fallen off the green bicycle, and injured her finger. Head down in a strong wind she had ridden into the back of a parked car. This was almost exactly the same thing that had happened to the woman once, when she was a schoolgirl, trying not to lose her hat. The woman likes to think about this coincidence.

And so, my friends, what if we should ask of this bicycle, Why do you exist? I suggest the answer would be forthcoming: I exist to be.

Perhaps you have enjoyed thinking about these simple things. If so please join me and my good friend Le Bon David for next week's edition of The Velosopher!