By: Nathan Pensky
The Bygone Bureau, January 28, 2013

…And I’ve always associated bikes with escaping. When I was a kid, bike-riding was a definite escape for me — that is, when it wasn’t for practical purposes, like getting to and from school. If I wanted to get away from my parents or my homework or whatever else could bother a grade-schooler, that was my go-to outlet. My bike was more than just a mode of conveyance; there was some weird magic to it.

Bikes are self-propelled, but after a point they just seem to take over. That saying, “It’s like riding a bike,” is so pervasive, because bike-riding is in our bones. You can’t forget how to ride a bike, because the act is itself a sort of forgetting. A few pedals, and the world whizzes past in a blur. Cars are like little rooms, big enough to carry multiple passengers and, thus, their own set of problems. Buses are even bigger and compound that effect. But a bike is made for one person, and it seems to move just fast enough that problems can’t catch up.