CHAPTER 10
ROGUE
BICYCLIST
I consider myself a rogue bicyclist. And what is that, you ask ?
Well it's many things and different things. It's someone who rides their bike
all winter even through the snowdrifts....but I dont do that. It's a weird
artist who transforms their bike into an artpiece... but mine is only like found
object art. Yes I dressed it up some at one time , but it remains a real
beater, a junker, a beauty of a bike. A rougue bicyclist is someone who
marches to a different drill sergent in their head. It's someone who doesnt
comply with normal standards....but they might. I can spot one a block away, but
I might not be their friend. I might fall in love with one, but they might ride
right by, lost in their own particular worlds. They might be a
business person, or a the girl who looks 25, but is really 65, and collects old
paper bags in her wire-baskets-on-old-blue-schwinn. Whoever they are, I can
usually pick them out because they have a passion for riding that surpasses
the destination-oriented ride. Not the week-end riders for pleasure, but the
everyday rider in the rain, steeled to the wind, layered-for-the-weather riders.
They think about things differently as they glide along with a certain
confidence that comes from years of riding...even if they have only ridden a few
days. There is an ease of penetrating the air that gives a rogue bicyclist their
edge. You see them and think they might be freaks, and you're probably right.
It's a mind-set, a mind-meld, a mind fuck. It feels like breathing or flying. It
smells like oil and grease, and streets, and cars, and sweat. It fills the holes
of pain we all live with. It settles the nerves of a day gone bad. It relieves
the stress of the human equation. Many rogues share similarities. I have gotten
the nod, and given the nod to many, like myself, cruising along no-handed as if
held to the road by a rail, turning corners and manuvering hills, all with out
the aid of hands on handlebars. I consider all who ride this way to be rogue
bicyclists. Some who ride no-handed are not, and only the discerning eye can see
the difference...but it has to do with grace and ease. Like posers, being a
rogue bicyclist is more an attribute than a learned skill, but one must learn
somewhere. I think it starts in youth, like when my buddy, Dave Sturdevant, and
I would literally run along the back of guys riding their bikes. We would grab
their rear fender, or tension bars and run behind, freaking out the riders.
Although this wasnt actually riding a bike, it qualifies as rougue behavior
leading to the ultimate design of RB.
.........more
coming..........
