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!

Velosophy

Welcome to the first edition of Velosophy. I am David Hume, Le Bon David, as the French are pleased to call me. In this magazine my friend Voltaire and I intend to explore some of the fascinating philosophical issues that arise when a man rides a bicycle. I shall go first.

Here is a man, riding his bicycle along a beach. Or let us say, there is such a man. For now all there is to prove that there is a man riding his bicycle along a beach are the tracks that his tyres make in the sand.

And here is the sun. But he may not look at the sun. All that the man has to prove there is a sun in the sky is a shining path upon the sea, all aglitter, and the miniscule shadows of the tracks of his tyres in the sand.

And now the man is thinking of a pretty puzzle. What are the colours of the sea? He may only describe the colours in terms of the impressions that they make upon his senses. And what if he has never seen anything the colour of the colours that he sees make up the colours of the sea? He must do his best. Let us listen to his thoughts:

(But we cannot listen to his thoughts. All we have are the tracks of his bicycle tyres in the sand, and a shining path of glittering light leading from our eyes across the water to a point on the horizon that is directly below the position where we imagine that the sun he may not look at is in the sky.)

We must imagine his thoughts. We must also imagine that he is riding south, with the sun on his shoulder, if we wish him to come up with better colour images than shiny, and grey. No, he must be riding south, and look! he must be crunching these tiny white fingernail shells as he goes, crunch crackle crunch. He looks at the sea, the thick sensuous roll of foam like boiling sugar. It spreads and forms a lacy bridal train that dissolves into flecks of disappointed bubbles.

The wet sand is blue, the shallows like the juice of lemons. The water deepens fast, becoming plum. Farther out, it looks a virulent pondweed green. White fingernails of foam rise and run. Beyond the green, it's inky blacky blue.

But with what degree of certainty can he claim this to be true?

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Next week my good friend Voltaire will venture to amuse you in his new persona as The VeloDrone. Until then, happy cycling!