I thought of that while riding my bike. -Albert Einstein, on the theory of relativity
Quotes
By famous and infamous people.
With the heaps of overly specialized gear — gloves, shoes, and biking jerseys — most cyclists realize that every day on the road is Halloween. Plain and simple, it's wearing a costume each time out of the gate.…We're neon signs, stylistically impaired wonders blinding pedestrians and fooling small children into thinking that the circus has come back to town. -Joe Kurmaskie, the Metal Cowboy: Riding Outside the LinesThe advantages? Exercise, no parking problems, gas prices, it's fun.
An automobile is expensive. You have to find a place to park and it's
not fun. So why not ride a bicycle? I recommend it. -Stephen G. Breyer, U.S. Supreme Court Justice when ask why he rides a bike. The best routes are the ones you haven't ridden. You could pedal the
same loops year after year. Many people do, literally or figuratively.
But to grow, you need new rides. Risks. Turn down lanes you've long
seen but never traveled. Get lost once or twice, then double back to
where you started and try again
Live like this and you come to see unknown territory not as threatening,
but as intriguing. -Mark Remy, Bicycling Magazine 9/01Predawn ride, I pass my neighbor on a run. "Why are you riding
a bike?" he asks. "Running gets you in shape faster." It's not
about that. It's about how riding makes me feel. The speed. Leaning
into gentle curves. Charging up hills. How strong my legs feel.
Riding gets me fit. But thats just luck. I don't ride to get fit. -R. Todd BarkerEvery time I see an adult on a bicycle I no longer despair
for the future of the human race. -H.G. WellsNothing compares with the simple pleasure of a bike ride. -John F. KennedyIt's something I find enjoyable. Whether it is a road bike or mountain bike
or tandem bike. I enjoy riding a bike. -Lance ArmstrongGet e bicycle. You will certainly not regret it, if you live. -Mark TwainI relax by taking my bicycle apart and putting it back together again. -Michelle PfeifferCycle tracks will abound in Utopia. -H.G. WellsThe sound of a car door opening in front of you is similar to the sound
of a gun being cocked. -Amy WebsterNever use your face as a brake pad. -Jake WatsonI was trying to introduce myself as America's woman champion, but I said
the french word "Champignon," so I introduced myself as a mushroom. -Nancy Neiman BaranetRefrain from throwing your bicycle in public. It shows poor upbringing. -Jacquie PhelanWho am I? Where am I? Oh yes-I'm at the Tour, so I should get on my bike and go. Where is my bike? -Djamolidin Abdujaparov's first words after regaining consciousness after a crash, 1996
My grandfather told me: Always wear underpants beneath your kanzu before
you mount your bicycle. Foolishly I mocked him, and now my heart is a dry
ear pod. I was cycling home from the market when a terrible whirlwind blew
up my kanzu, ballooning it over my face and lifting me far above the ground.
I kept control but when the bike landed I sat down hard upon my testicles,
squashing them against the saddle to the flatness of patties. A sharp pain
ran through my entire body. Then I felt an inner peace and went into a deep
sleep. -Mzee OposenBones Heal
Chicks Dig Scars
Pain is Temporary
Glory is Forever -Patrick Aanstoots
Sussex, NJ
People like to travel: that is why the grass is greener over the
fence. We are walkers --- our natural means of travel is to put one
foot in front of the other. The bicycle seduces our basic nature by
making walking exciting. It lets us take 10-foot strides at 160 paces
a minute. That's 20 miles an hour, instead of 4 or 5... It is not
only how fast you go --- cars are faster and jet planes faster still.
But jet-plane travel is frustrating boredom --- at least the car gives
the pictorial illusion of travel. Cycling does it all --- you have
the complete satisfaction of arriving because your mind has chosen the
path and steered you over it; your eyes have seen it; your muscles
have felt it; your breathing, circulatory and digestive systems have
all done their natural functions better than ever, and every part of
your being knows you have traveled and arrived. --- John Forester, Effective Cycling, Chapter 22I suppose that was what attracted me to the bicycle right from the
start. It is not so much a way of getting somewhere as it is a setting
for randomness; it makes every journey an unorganized tour. --- Daniel Behrman, The Man Who Loved Bicycles, Chapter 5The world lies right beyond the handlebars of any bicycle that I
happen to be on anywhere from New York Bay to the Vallee de
Chevreuse. Anywhere is high adventure, the walls come down, the
cyclist is a loner, it is the only way for him to meet other
loners. And it works. One seldom exchanges anything but curses or
names of insurance companies with another driver, the car inhibits
human contacts. The bicycle generates them; bikes talk to each other
like dogs, they wag their wheels and tinkle their bells, the riders
let their mounts mingle. --- Daniel Behrman, The Man Who Loved Bicycles, Chapter 6She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain
the mastery of life.
I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into
momentum.
That which caused the many failures I had in learning the bicycle has
caused me failures in life; namely, a certain fearful looking for of
judgement; a too vivid realization of the uncertainty of everything
about me; an underlying doubt -- at once, however, matched and
overcome by the determination not to give in to it.
I began to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the
world, upon whose spinning wheel we must all earn to ride, or fall
into the sluiceways of oblivion and despair. That which made me
succeed with the bicycle was precisely what had gained me a measure of
success in life -- it was the hardihood of spirit that led me to
begin, the persistence of will that held me to my task, and the
patience that was willing to begin again when the last stroke had
failed. And so I found high moral uses in the bicycle and can commend
it as a teacher without pulpit or creed. --- Frances E. Willard, How I Learned To Ride The Bicycle, 1895
The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it
gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one
without shocking the entire community. --- Ann Strong, Minneapolis Tribune, 1895 One of my favorite things about biking (vs driving):When I used to
drive, I always drove with my doors locked...I would play my stereo,
and mostly avoid any contact with other drivers on the road (just
stayed in my gas-guzzling box..) But now, I ride my bike and oddly
enough, I'm less afraid of all those things..And when I am at a
stoplight and another cyclist is also there, I usually know their name
by the time the light turns green! Its like all these walls come down
and although it seems more dangerous than being in a car, I am less
afraid! --- Joni Mehler, 1995 In the past two decades, thousands of miles of trails have been
paved in the United States, but many of them look as if they were
designed by someone who'd never ridden a bike. By consulting more
with the people who do a lot of travelling under their own power,
transportation planners ought to be able to come up with imaginative
schemes for making roads, paths and sidewalks more usable to them, and
maybe help cut down a bit on our reliance on the automobile. --- Trouble on the Trail, Washington Post op-ed, May 18, 1993 Shark-nosed automobiles streamed in endless caravan through the
gentle acid rain, spraying one another with a film of insoluble filth,
a vicious servility oozing by in grease. .... (p. 102)
"Doctor Sarvis,
laboring on his bicycle up the long grade of Ninth South toward his
home on 23rd East, was not unaware of the pressure of the traffic
accumulating in his rear, the clamor of horns pounded by impatient
fists, the motorized hatred fermenting at his back. But he thought,
"Fuck 'em". Let 'em wait. Let 'em fester. Let 'em walk. Let 'em ride a
bike like me, would do me and them and everybody a world of
good. Cleanse our city's air, reinvigorate the blood, tone up the
muscles, strengthen the heart, burn up that surplus fat, stave off
arteriosclerosis, cut down on bypass operations, eliminate
transplants, lower the cholesterol count, prolong lives. Yes and
reduce oil consumption, slow down the waste of steel and rubber and
copper and glass, free human labor and engineering skills for
important work -- anything bad for the auto industry and bad for the
oil industry is bound to be good for America, good for human beings,
good for the land. .... (p. 107) --- Edward Abbey, Hayduke Lives!
When I was sick, I didn't want to die.
When I race, I don't want to lose.
Dying and losing, it's the same thing.--- Lance Armstrong People do not 'drive' cars, they steer them.
People do not 'ride' bicycles, they drive them.--- A. N. Mouse (submitted by Mark Atkins)
In the prehuman environment much of that carbon removed from the
atmosphere by green plants was locked safely away in the earth, where
it could not be returned to the air by respiration. Disregarding his
own need for a nearly carbon-free atmosphere, man perceived the
deposits of coal and petroleum not as safe underground storage of
natural pollutants, but as 'fossil fuels'; he set about eagerly
unearthing them to fulfill his growing demand for energy. --- William R. Catton, Jr., Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of
Revolutionary Change, p. 99 From an airplane above an American city, the only human activity
visible was the movement of cars. [....] From a closer view, the
movement and noise of cars dominated the urban landscape. In human
minds routes and the vehicles that connected them often seemed more
compelling than the places the routes supposedly served [....] At any
given moment, a vast part of the population was busy manufacturing or
repairing cars, or servicing cars through highway and street work, gas
stations, police forces and courts, licensing and taxing bodies,
insurance companies, hospitals, morgues and mausoleums. Everything
considered, the automobile consumed well over an eighth of all the
productive capacity of the American economy [....] Drivers thought of
their vehicles merely as convenient (though increasingly expensive)
machines to convey them from place to place. But cars inevitably
functioned also as parts of the biosphere. In each one, a powerful
internal combustion engine turned over insatiably, gulping in several
gallons of gas per hour, mixing it with large quantities of air, and
expelling the polluted air exhausts, like one long, continuous,
carcinogenic fart. So markedly did the voracious cars out-breathe
humans that there was no particle of air in metropolitan areas that
had not previously passed through the cylinders of at least one car,
and bore in the noxious gases and particulates that it carried the
traces of that passage. --- Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia Emerging, p. 77-78A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle. -ViqueA man needs a bicycle between his legs like a woman needs a fish. -Wehr ReichAll Bicycles weigh 50 pounds; A 30 pound bicycle needs a 20 pound lock.
A 40 pound bicycle needs a 10 pound lock. A 50 pound bicycle doesn't need
a lock. -Bicycle LawLife is like riding a bicycle. You don't fall off unless you plan
to stop pedaling. -Claude PepperI loath people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the
guts to bite people themselves. -August StrindbergI love riding with women. There's no snot blowing, spitting, or dirty jokes.
Well I guess there is, but it's more fun when you're the one doing it!! -overheard at a BOMBB Squad (all-women) rideTo ride a bicycle properly is very much like a love affair; chiefly is
is a matter of faith. Believe you can do it and the thing is done; doubt,
and for the life of you, you cannot. -H.G. Wells, The Wheels of ChanceLet me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has
done more to emancipate women than anything
else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman
on a wheel. It gives a woman a feeling of freedom and self-
reliance. -Susan B. Anthony, New York World, February 2, 1896
(The term "loose woman" originated with the dawn of women on
bikes and their desire to ride corset free- Terry catalog)
Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things
about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that
at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that
if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops
moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it. That is a
metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of
any society of living things. --- William Golding (1911-93), British author.
"Utopias and Antiutopias,"
address, 13 Feb. 1977, to Les Anglicistes, Lille, France (repr. in A Moving
Target, 1982). If all feeling for grace and beauty were not extinguished in the mass of
mankind at the actual moment, such a method of locomotion as cycling could
never have found acceptance; no man or woman with the slightest aesthetic
sense could assume the ludicrous position necessary for it. --- Ouida [Marie Louise de la Ramee] (1839-1908), English novelist.
Critical Studies, "The Ugliness of Modern Life" (1900).
The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their
natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish
get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as
a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be
surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people
and half bicycle. --- Sergeant Pluck, expounding on The Atomic Theory, in
"The Third Policeman," by Flann O'Brien.
Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels
with a chain-at least in a poor country like Russia-and his vanity begins
to swell out like his tyres. In America it takes an automobile to produce
this effect.
--- Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), Russian revolutionary. The History of the Russian
Revolution, vol. 2, ch. 7 (1933).
"When man invented the bicycle, he reached the peak of
his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and
balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike
subsequent inventions for man´s convenience) the more
he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once
was a product of man´s brain that was entirely beneficial
to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to
others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle."
Elizabeth West
"The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of
transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart."
Iris Murdoch
"I love the bicycle. I always have. I can think of no sincere, decent human
being, male or female, young or old, saintly or sinful, who can resist the bicycle."
William Saroyan
"When I go biking I am mentally far far away from civilization.
The world is breaking someone else's heart."
Diane Ackerman
"If the wind is not against you, it is not blowing."
James E Starrs
"I never want to abandon my bike. I see my grandfather, now in his seventies
and riding around everywhere. To me that is beautiful. And the bike must always
remain a part of my life."
Stephen Roche
"Like dogs, bicycles are social catalysts that attract a superior category of people."
Chip Brown
"You never have the wind with you - either it is against you or you're having a good day."
W. Somerset Maugham
"Whoever invented the bicycle deserves the thanks of humanity."
Lord Charles Beresford
"There is nothing, absolutely nothing, quite so worthwhile as simply messing
about on bicycles."
Tom Kunich
"Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades."
Anonymous
"It is no longer a beast of steel . . no it is a friend . . it is a faithful
and powerful ally against one's worst enemies. It is stronger than anxiety,
stronger than sadness. It has all the power of hope."
Maurice Leblanc
"Since the bicycle make little demand on material or energy resources, contributes
little to pollution, makes a positive contribution to health and causes little
death ro injury, it can be regarded as the most benevolent of machines."
Stuart S Wilson
"A road rider who is not practiced is merely an athlete on a bike,
half-educated, a pedaler - not a complete cyclist."
Maynard Hershon
"Really steep climbs are not my forte, so I always dread that lowest gear
because I figure, god, I'm doomed."
Juli Furtado
"Cycling is just like church - many attend, but few understand."
Jim Burlant
"The grace and charm of the bicycle lend added warmth and contour to
the persons of the lovers it joins."
James E Starrs
"Smooth, predictable riding when you're in a group isn't just a matter
of style. It's survival."
Geoff Drake
"Marriage is a wonderful invention; but then again, so is a bicycle repair kit."
Billy Connolly
"Just go steady and hard up all the hills. People don't mind riding
fast and slow, fast and slow, but they hate a hard, steady pace."
Heidi Hopkins
"People are screaming and the next thing you know you're going too hard.
You're out of the saddle sprinting up a hill or something and because of
the cheers you don't feel a thing until you get to the top. Then you pay."
Alison Sydor
"But the fact is that I wouldn't have won even a single Tour de France
without the lesson of illness. What it teaches is this: pain is
temporary. Quitting lasts forever."
-- Lance Armstrong in Every Second Counts, chapter 1.
"It never gets easier, you just go faster."
-- Greg LeMond
"Cats don't like riding on a bicycle....no matter how much duct tape you use."
-- Anonymous
"How fast can you go downhill?"
"Pretty fast"
"Well, you better ride like you stole something 'cause you are about to win a stage in the Tour de Fance"
-- Lance Armstrong and Floyd Landis. Unfortunately, this German guy messed up the plan.
"What's with these recumbent bicycles? Listen, buddy, if you wanna take a nap, lie down. If you wanna ride a bike, buy a >#*%^* bicycle."
–- George Carlin
"The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A
shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom.
The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard."
-- Sloan Wilson
"Bicycling is a healthy and manly pursuit with much to recommend it, and,
unlike other foolish crazes,it has not died out."
-- The Daily Telegraph (1877)
"A bicycle does get you there and more and there is always the thin edge of
danger to keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive. Dogs become dogs
again and snap at your raincoat; potholes become personal. And getting
there is all the fun."
-- Anonymous
"The bicycle has a soul. If you succeed to
love it, it will give you emotions that you will never forget."
-- Mario Cipollini, on why he retired, then unretired to win the 2002 World Championship
"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best,
since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember
them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses
you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven
through as you gain by riding a bicycle."
-- Ernest Hemingway
"Work to Eat. Eat to Live. Live to Bike. Bike to Work."
"Given the remarkable growth in support for gays and lesbians, I think
there is a chance that recumbents might someday be accepted."
-- RAAM rider, 2005
"Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort
of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle."
-- Helen Keller
"The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance to man. Other forms of
transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart."
-- Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green
"When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes
monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and
go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride
you are taking."
-- (Sir) Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock Holmes), in the January 18, 1896 issue of Scientific American Magazine
"Finishing a ride is mandatory. Finishing a ride fast is optional."
"The reward for riding up hill, is the fun of riding down them."
"Wind is just a hill in gaseous form."
-- Barry McCarty
"Bicycles have no walls."
-- Paul Cornish
"The bicycle is a curious vehicle. It's pasenger is it's engine."
-- John Howard
"You never have the wind with you. It is either against you or you are having a good day."
-- Daniel Behrman, The Man Who Loved Bicycles
"Cycling is unique. No other sport lets you go like that - where there's only
the bike left to hold you up. If you ran as hard, you'd fall over. Your legs
wouldn't support you."
-- Steve Johnson
"All creatures who have ever walked have wished that they might fly.
With highwheelers a flesh and blood man can hitch wings to his feet."
-Karl Kron, Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle
"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then
I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and
asked Him to forgive me."
-- Emo Phillips
"Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use."
-- Charles M. Schulz
"Sometimes the pain of quitting can be worse than the pain of going on."
-- Anonymous
"I would rather ride my bike with a headwind, then to drive my car in heavy traffic on downtown street."
-- Tobias
"The world is my church, the wind in my ears is the choir and my handlebars are the alter I pray at."
-- zcubed
"Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen."
-- Louis L'Amour, novelist (1908-1988)
"If Huffy made an airplane, would you fly in it?"
"Friends Don't Let Friends Drive"
"Mend Your Fuelish Ways"
"Irritability means too much on your mind and not enough bike riding"
-bumper sticker
"Burn Carbohydrates, Not Hydrocarbons"
"Brains before Beauty, Wear your helmet!"
"This is your interview."
-- Cadel Evans, tossing his crushed and cracked helmet to a journalist after finishing stage 9 bruised and blooded from a high-speed crash during the 2008 TdF.
