I thought of that while riding my bike.
-Albert Einstein, on the theory of relativity
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
"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 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. ------------------------------------------------- "If were not a man, I would like to be a bird. As I am a man, I do the next best thing, and ride a bicycle." -- Rev. Maltie, ‘How to Bicycle’, 1892 “Truly, the bicycle is the most influential piece of product design ever.” -- Hugh Pearman, Design Week, 12 June 2008 “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.” -- Sherlock Holmes author, Arthur Conan Doyle, Scientific American, 1896 “Nothing compares to getting your heart rate up to 170-something, riding hard for an hour-twenty, getting off and not hurting, as opposed to 24 minutes of running, at the end of which I hurt. When you ride a bike and you get your heart rate up and you’re out, after 30 or 40 minutes your mind tends to expand; it tends to relax.” -- President George W Bush, May 2004 “When you ride hard on a mountain bike, sometimes you fall, otherwise you’re not riding hard.” -- President George W. Bush, July 2005, following a crash into a bike cop at the G8 summit, Gleneagles, Scotland “[Commuting by bicycle is] an absolutely essential part of my day. It’s mind-clearing, invigorating. I get to go out and pedal through the countryside in the early morning hours, and see life come back and rejuvenate every day as the sun is coming out.” -- James L. Jones, former US Supreme Allied Commander Europe, now Barack Obama’s national security advisor Ned Flanders: “You were bicycling two abreast?” Homer Simpson: “I wish. We were bicycling to a lake.” -- The Simpsons, ‘Dangerous Curves’ (Episode 2005), first broadcast, November 10th 2008 “An engineer designing from scratch could hardly concoct a better device to unclog modern roads - cheap, nonpolluting, small and silent…” -- Rick Smith, International Herald Tribune, May 2006 “I used to work in a bank when I was younger and to me it doesn’t matter whether it’s raining or the sun is shining or whatever: as long as I’m riding a bike I know I’m the luckiest guy in the world.” -- Pro racer Mark Cavendish, after the second of his four stage wins in the 2008 Tour de France. “Riding a bike is everything to a cyclist. The friendship and camaraderie you have with other cyclists …to a cyclist, it was the be-all and end-all of your life.” -- Tommy Godwin, double bronze medal winner in the 1,000m time trial and the team pursuit in the 1948 Olympics in London. “It’s a risky business being a cyclist in the UK, there are a lot of people who really dislike us. It’s the Jeremy Clarkson influence – we’re hated on the roads. We just hope people realise we are just flesh and bones on two wheels.” -- Victoria Pendleton, gold medal winner in the women’s sprint at the Beijing Olympics, 2008. “At that age, it’s one of the worse things in the world to wake up and not see your bike where you left it.” -- Hip-hop star 50 Cent, real name Curtis Jackson, on the theft of his childhood bike “There is something about the miscreant cyclist that seems to get people more exercised than they are about the misbehaving motorist…When people get into cars, their metal encasement turns them into robots in our minds, and we’re grateful to them for any act of courtesy. We’re grateful that they don’t deliberately kill children, then laugh a rasping, metallic laugh…[Cyclists] are more civic-minded than anyone else travelling in any other manner, bar by foot. If they do run into someone, they at least (like the bee) do their victim the favour of hurting themselves in the process, which is why, if you had any sense, you’d save your hatred for the motorist, who (like the wasp) injures without care.” -- Zoe Williams, The Guardian, 4th February 2006 “The cyclist is a man half made of flesh and half of steel that only our century of science and iron could have spawned.” -- 19th-century author Louis Baudry de Saunier “The place of cycling in our society is set to grow, and I am committed to doing everything possible to encourage that.” -- UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, June 26th 2008 “[On] Valentine’s Day, I’ll present my beloved with a shiny bauble I bought from our favorite store. Next I’ll take my honey out for a sunset cruise, maybe to the spot where we first got acquainted. Later, back home, I’ll give my baby a bath. Then I’ll gently dry my sweetie and turn out the lights… I’m talking, of course, about my bike…I humbly submit that my bike and I make a better team than most relationships I’ve seen…Your bicycle invigorates you, strengthens you, relaxes you, lets you vent your frustrations without interrupting, nodding off or making judgments. Your bicycle helps you meet other people. Your bicycle always goes where you want to go. And if you buy your bicycle a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, you get to eat them all.” -- Scott Martin, roadbikerider.com “Devised almost 200 years ago by a practical German baron, the bicycle has evolved into an urban staple. Beloved of children, prized by inner-city commuters, it can be a lifesaver when summer smog chokes the nation.” -- ‘Globe and Mail’, Canada, 6th June 2006. “Cycling has encountered more enemies than any other form of exercise.” -- 19th-century author Louis Baudry de Saunier “Five years from now, if I’m in Texas and there is a local mountain bike race, will I go down and do it? Probably. That’s just simply as a fan and somebody who does cycling for fitness. I’m committed to the bike for life!” -- Lance Armstrong, 18th April 2005, the day he announced he was retiring. “One of the things that I wound up loving about being involved with a bike racer was learning how to bike and how that really creates solitary time for you to reflect on things and nobody can get a hold of you.” -- Sheryl Crow, talking about her [ex]-life with Lance Armstrong, cyclingnews.com, July 13th 2005 “[Jeremy Clarkson] always moans on about drivers being attacked. We should be hounding them even more - cars have no place in an urban environment.” -- John Grimshaw, founder and chief engineer, Sustrans, ‘The Guardian’, June 8th 2005. “I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle; I want to ride my bicycle; I want to ride my bike; I want to ride my bicycle; I want to ride it where I like…; I don’t believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein or Superman; All I wanna do is bicycle, bicycle, bicycle…” -- Freddie Mercury, Queen, 1978 “Bicycling…is the nearest approximation I know to the flight of birds. The airplane simply carries a man on its back like an obedient Pegasus; it gives him no wings of his own. There are movements on a bicycle corresponding to almost all the variations in the flight of the larger birds. Plunging free downhill is like a hawk stooping. On the level stretches you may pedal with a steady rhythm like a heron flapping; or you may, like an accipitrine hawk, alternate rapid pedaling with gliding. If you want to test the force and direction of the wind, there is no better way than to circle, banked inward, like a turkey vulture. When you have the wind against you, headway is best made by yawing or wavering, like a crow flying upwind. I have climbed a steep hill by circling or spiraling, rising each time on the upturn with the momentum of the downturn, like any soaring bird. I have shot in and out of stalled traffic like a goshawk through the woods.” -- Birdwatching author Louis J Halle ‘Spring in Washington’, 1947/1957 “You always know when you’re going to arrive. If you go by car, you don’t. Apart from anything else, I prefer cycling. It puts you in a good mood, I find.” -- Playwright Alan Bennett, Boston Globe, June 2006 “The more I’ve been mountain biking, the more I see myself as a female. In letting your femininity go to become a mountain biker, you actually find it more.” -- Niki Gudex, ‘FHM magazine’, February 2005 “To me the bicycle is in many ways a more satisfactory invention than the automobile. It is consonant with the independence of man because it works under his own power entirely. There is no combustion of some petroleum product..to set the pedals going. Purely mechanical instruments like watches and bicycles are to be preferred to engines that depend on the purchase of power from foreign sources….The price of power is enslavement.” -- Birdwatching author Louis J Halle ‘Spring in Washington’, 1947/1957 “The bicycle is the perfect transducer to match man’s metabolic energy to the impedance of locomotion. Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well. Bicycles let people move with greater speed without taking up significant amounts of scarce space, energy, or time. They can spend fewer hours on each mile and still travel more miles in a year. They can get the benefit of technological breakthroughs without putting undue claims on the schedules, energy, or space of others. They become masters of their own movements without blocking those of their fellows. Their new tool creates only those demands which it can also satisfy. Every increase in motorized speed creates new demands on space and time. The use of the bicycle is self-limiting. It allows people to create a new relationship between their life-space and their life-time, between their territory and the pulse of their being, without destroying their inherited balance. The advantages of modern self-powered traffic are obvious, and ignored. That better traffic runs faster is asserted, but never proved. Before they ask people to pay for it, those who propose acceleration should try to display the evidence for their claim.” Ivan Illich, ‘Energy and Equity, Toward a History of Needs’, 1978. “Drivers wish for better roads and less congestion, but are unprepared to make personal sacrifices by reducing the amount they use their car in order to achieve this outcome.” -- ‘Counting the Cost, Cutting Congestion’, RAC Foundation, 2004 “[A bicycle is] an unparalled merger of a toy, a utilitarian vehicle, and sporting equipment. The bicycle can be used in so many ways, and approaches perfection in each use. For instance, the bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon. A person pedalling a bike uses energy more efficiently than a gazelle or an eagle. And a triangle-framed bicycles can easily carry ten times its own weight - a capacity no automobile, airplane or bridge can match.” -- Bill Strickland “Bicycles are almost as good as guitars for meeting girls.” Bob Weir, Grateful Dead “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 18th, 1993 “My wife…thinks cycling is great way to spend time as a family while burning a few calories. For her, the family ride is quality time. Then again, she does not have the trailer with 50 or so stuffed animals and the 2-year-old singing “Old McDonald” attached to her bike as we climb what must be Mont Ventoux. Hmm … now that I think about it, cycling is the best way to burn a bazillion calories and hang with the family.” -- US bike shop owner John Kibodeaux, VeloNews, 2005 “Highway engineers are responsible for the nation’s obesity. They’re obsessed with roads that just encourage a sedentary lifestyle…The police want us in cars because they say there is less chance of being mugged, but if you encourage more people on to the streets, either walking or cycling, they will be safer.” -- John Grimshaw, founder and chief engineer, Sustrans, ‘The Guardian’, June 8th 2005. “MOTORISTS: Cyclists are not another species - most of them drive cars at least some of the time - and they’re not, by and large, wilfully stupid or reckless. But they experience the roads differently from you…So be patient. After all, it’s not as if getting rid of cyclists is a realistic option now - there are too many of them, and the numbers are growing all the time. And a few years down the line, as petrol gets more expensive, you might well end up as one of them yourself.” -- Robert Hanks, ‘The Independent’, 12th June 2006 “I expect to see the day when not to ride a wheel will be a mark of a defective education, and people will say to such a person, ‘Why, where have you been brought up?’” -- Reverend W.J Petrie of Chicago, ‘How to Bicycle’, 1892 “Cyclers see considerable more of this beautiful world than any other class of citizens. A good bicycle, well applied, will cure most ills this flesh is heir to.” -- Dr. K. K. Doty of New York, ‘How to Bicycle’, 1892 “As a means of pleasure, cycling stands in the foremost rank, but in common with all the great pleasures, it may easily stand in the foremost in abuse. The desire to ride at an unreasonably high speed may become morbid…The ever lasting scorcher, bent like a hoop, and with sunken cheeks, ought to be quite sufficient warning against this abuse.” -- L. F. Korns, ‘How to Bicycle’, 1892 “Cycling fills the remotest cells of the lungs with outdoor air. The pores are opened and the dead secretions are thrown off. It aids the peristaltic movement of the bowels" -- L. F. Korns, ‘How to Bicycle’, 1892 "Man is by nature a risk-taker, a challenger of limits, or he would not have evolved. An individual human life without risk would result in a stagnant personality. Thoreau was right: When it comes time for me to die, I do not want to look back on my life and find that I have not lived. "Responsibility to family remains a disturbing and pertinent point. However, I would rather take a small and calculated risk to be a fit, alive, interesting and exuberant cyclist than come ponderously home each evening to the TV and snack tray. "The risks of that lifestyle may be less obvious than those of cycling, but they are more insidious, more deadly and, to my mind, far less acceptable. Perhaps we can't choose the time and manner of our deaths, but we can have a say in the style and quality of our lives. "How can I justify cycling when I have a wife and son? In the final analysis, it is the time spent away from them while training and racing that enables me to return changed -- added to somehow by the experience, made more than when I left. And that, it seems to me, is justification enough." -- Coach Fred Matheny when ask "What's your perspective on cycling and danger?"
“Chasing records doesn't keep me on my bike. Happiness does" -- Lance Armstrong, on his third Tour de France Victory, 2001 “The bicycle is its own best arguement. You just get a bike, try it; start going with the thing and using it as it suits you. It'll grow and it gets better and better and better." -- Richard Ballantine “After a time, habituated to spending so many hours a day on my bike, I became less and less interested in my friends. My wheel had now become my one and only friend. I could rely on it, which is more than I could say about my buddies. It's too bad no one ever photographed me with my friend. I would give anything now to know what we looked like." -- Henry Miller, My Bike and Other Friends “As a kid I had a dream -- I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe in the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bikes in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it by my bed. Funny, although it was important to me then, I can't remember what finally happened to it." -- John Lennon “It is curious that with the advent of the automobile and the airplane, the bicycle is still with us. Perhaps people like the world they can see from a bike, or the air they breath when they're out on a bike. Or they like the bicycle's simplicity and the precision with which it is made. Or because they like the feeling of being able to hurtle through air one minute, and saunter through a park the next, without heaving behind clouds of choking exaust, without leaving behind so much as a footstep." -- GurCon S. Leete “I'm lucky that mountain biking wasn't around when I was 20, because I wouldn't have won the Tour de France. It's my kind of sport -- hard, individualistic, and not a lot of tactics." -- Greg LeMond “Mountain biking's cult status died the day Madonna started riding." -- Bike Magazine “To sweep down hills and plunge into valley hollows; to cover as on wings the far stretches of the road ahead and find them in bloom at your approach." -- Alain Fournier, The Wanderer “All creatures who have ever walked have wished they might fly. With highwheelers a flesh and blood man can hitch wings to his feet." -- Karl Kron, Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle “I mean, you either love spinning th pedals and watching scenery whiz by, or you don't. And if you love it, not much can sour you on the idea of riding your bike." -- Keith Mills “I wonder if the decline in road bike sales isn't also a reaction to the perfection of the road bike. Maybe once you get everything you want, you lose interest. Back when road bikes had cottered cranks, Simplex derailleurs made of flimsy plastic, Universal brakes that couldn't arrest the forward motion of a determined box turtle, and tires so miserable they will remain nameless (Hutchinson, I lied), you could hardly wait to buy a better one. Now, with factories pumping out an endless stream of perfect bicycles --functionally perfect anyway -- who cares?" -- Ted Costantino “There are a lot of people with expectations that U.S. cycling will become a big sport like it is in Europe. But you have to be realistic. I don't care what American football does, it isn't going to be as big in Erope as it is in the U.S. People grow up with a sport -- that's what makes it big. That's what has happened with cycling in the U.S." -- Greg LeMond “Tens of thousands who coould never afford to own, feed and stable a horse, had by this bright invention enjoyed the swiftness of motion which is perhaps the most fascinating feature of material life" -- Frances Willard, How I learned to Ride the Bicycle “Next to a leisurely walk I enjoy a spin on my tandem bicycle. It is splendid to feel the wind blowing in my face and the springy motion of my iron steed. The rapid rush through the air gives me a delicious sense of strength and buoyancy, and the exercise makes my pulse dance and my heart sing" -- Helen Keller, The Story of My Life “My legs and a silly something in me cry out for knocking the milestones down one by one and stopping at nothing. For years I have been telling myself that it's not the miles in the life that count but the life in the miles, but still this silly restlessness hurries me on." -- Harold Elvin, THe Ride to Changigarh “Anybody can push down. That's natural. You walk up hills, you walk up steps. But cycling is unlike any other sport I can think of. There is no other sport that requires picking up the leg up so fast. That's where the real art of sprinting is." -- Mike Lolin “I am told that men who compete in certain kinds of athletics --such as bicycle racing --shave their legs to prevent wind drag, and also to avoid getting their hair caught in the chain." -- Abigail van Buren, answering a question to "Dear Abby" about male leg-shaving “Lon came home from his ride wearing a trash bag the other day. I get so mad when he does that, We've got all these trash bags lying around that we never use." -- Susan Notorangelo-Halderman “By mid-March you should be living in the big chainring." -- John Cobb “When you're turning the crankset, you're riding the bike. When you're coasting, you're just along for the ride." -- Ned Overend “The top riders are obliged to be fresh each time and they can't do that without stimulants. Nobody could or ever will be able to do that because there are no such things as supermen. Doping is necessary in cycling." -- Rik ban Steenbergen “Imagine someone telling you that by taking a certain drug you could win a single event and be three times richer, famous for life in your country - and it won't hurt anyone. What would you say? There's a wide range of ethics among the riders." -- Ned Overend “I picked my head up during an interval and saw an enormous ostrich zigzagging in the road. I swung wide to get by - and just as I did he started chasing me. These guys can motor. I had to sprint to drop him" -- Tyler Hamilton “Ride as much or as little, or as long or as short as you feel. But ride." --Eddy Merckx “No dougt about it. Because of the power workouts and short, intense efforts, trackies have the biggest butts in the business." -- Nancy Neely “Death may have no master, but the bicycle is, most emphatically, not its slave." -- James E Starts, The Noiselesss Tenor “The truly extraordinary feature of the bike is that, like the very greatest teacher, it encourages you to find the answers from somewhere deep down inside yourself and not merely take them from someone else. When I began my adventure into myself on my bike I did not seed to be told that I had to eat more of the right kind of food. I just knew I had to do it or else my legs would not work. I had never listened to or cared about those long terrifying lectures about the evils of smoking -complete with colored slides of blackened lungs - but I did know, after some time in the saddle, that I just had to give up cigarettes. I dis not need and expensive psychiatrist to tell me why I was depressed since, after a brisk ride, I was depressed no more." -- Tom Davies, Merlyn the Magician and the Pacific Coast Highway “For racers, it's common knowledge that the more fit you are, the less healthy you are. We always have to put on a jacket after a competition, even when it isn't cold, because if you catch just a little chill, you're gone." -- Connie Young “What athletes do may not be that healthy, the way we push our bodies completely over the edge to degrees that are not human. I've said all along that I will not live as long as the average person." -- Lance Armstrong “The bicycle riders drank much wine, and were burned and browned by the sun. They did not take the race seriously except among themselves." -- Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises “I don't race because I get euphoria out of cycling a lot of people don't. Besides, I can't sprint." -- Jobst Brandt “It was eleven more than necessary." -- Jacques Anquetil, after winning a race by twelve seconds “The Europeans look down on raising your hands. They don't like the end-zone dance. I thing that's unfortunate. That feeling -the finish line, the last couple of meters -is what motivates me." -- Lance Armstrong “Anyone interested in winning Olympic gold medals must select his or her parents very carefully." --Per-olof Astrand “Age and treachery will overcome youth and skill." -- Fausto Coppi “A win is a win. Only you can win normally or you can win with panache." -- Eddy Merekx “I won! I won! I don't have to go to school anymore." -- Eddy Merekx, after winning his first bike race “I felt really good that day. I was sure I would have won if my seat had not fallen off." -- Francois Gachet, after placing ninth in the 1993 world championships “I really did believe I could win. Look at my head. I visited the barber's shop this morning for a haircut to get ready for the winner's photo." -- Erik Breukink, after finishing 33rd at Fleche Wallone in 1994 “The broom wagon never moves up the long parade to seek a lagging rider. But if the last rider drops to the very rear, the van will remain a few feet behind him. To some, that might suggest a shark trailing a shipwreck survivor on a raft." --Sam Abt “Road rash definitely doesn't preclude racing. Neither is it a badge of courage. Mostly, it is a red flag to the other riders regarding bike- handling ability." -- Norm Alvis “If you ride your bike, you might get hurt, you might become impotent, and, hell, you might even die. What to do? Ride your bike anyway." --Zapata Espinosa “Falling comes easy to all of us, but falling properly is an art. If you train yourself to avoid the natural impulse to stick your hand out, you have a chance to tuck your shoulder in and roll. The force of landing is spread rather than concentrated on one small spot. This is the drill you can practice at home with couch cushions mattresses, whatever. I'd recommend doing it about every six months, just to keep the feel." -- Chris Carmichael “Some people pay a thousand dollars for a tattoo. This scar cost me twenty grand." -- Matt Hoffman “Nobody ever died from not knowing how to play flag football. Yet we spend tax money teaching kids its nuances in gym class, while bicycle safety is still foreign to most school curriculums. That ain't right" -- Don Cuerdon “Forget about your rights. Forget about what's fair. Forget all the rules of etiquette you ever learned. The average bicycle weighs twenty-five pounds. The average motor vehicle weight twenty-five hundred pounds. Your job is to avoid getting into an accident, not to prove you were within your rights after you're involved in one" -- Bob Katz “I lose the sense of balance, to the point Caston Plaud and the mechanic had to support me for more than two hundred meters before I could start again. Finding my way, I had to climb the thread of my own existance to know who I was and what I was doing in the bicycle. Then I saw the 'Peugeot' on my jersey and I remembered that I was a cyclist. But in what race were we? I didn't have any idea, until I noticed the Tour's yellow plate screwed on the bumper of the Peugeot's team car. Not being sure of anything, I am inquiring from Gaston Plad who answered, 'Yes, we are in the Tour, don't worry, you fell on your head." -- Bernard Thevenet, Tour de Frande 1972 “Not only did I break my seatpost, I also broke a nail." --Kathy Sessler “Every time you are caught behind a huge, fifty-man pile-up there was a strange, putrid odor. It took me years to figure it out: It's the smell of burning flesh." --Bob Roll “I was on a descent trying to catch up, because I had been dropped on a climb, when I hit the RMO team car. I was stuck on the back of the car on the roof rack -upside-down with my face on the bumper. My bike got left on one hair pin and then the guy floored it down to the next one and screeched around the turn. I got ripped off the rack and rolled off the side of the road and down a hill. Two guys lifted me back up to the road, and somehow had brought my bike down from the other corner. They put me back on, and I finished the stage and rode a second the same day." -- Paul Willerton “After your first day of cycling, one dream is inevitable. A memory of motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they seem to go. You ride thrugh Dreamland on Wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow." --H.G. Wells “I took a deep breath, looked for a final time at those comforting tires, pushed off and, to my amazement, actually went somewhere, I was awkward. I was ungainly. I hadn't gone more than three or four feet, but by God I felt the balance and that was enough. I did it!" -- Ken Turan, learning to ride at age forty-six “I never had to use training wheels. When I was twelve, I got a Schwinn Collegiate and taped a six-volt battery to my top tube. I got Christmas tree lights on it and rode around my neighborhood singing Christmas carols" -- Greg Bagni “Now it is true that I could have learned without a teacher, but it would have been risky for me." -- Mark Twain, Taming the Bicycle “When you're on the starting line of your first century, it's not wise to sit there and think, 'I've got to ride one hundred miles.' I remember my first one, and my thought was to get to the first rest stop. I made each succeeding rest stop my goal. When they're about twenty-five miles apart, you don't get intimidated by what seems an impossible distance. All you need to do is ride twenty-five miles four times." -- Seana Hogan “Learn to swear in different languages. Other riders will appreciate your efforts to communicate. They'll also know who you're talking to. " -- Robert Millar, on fitting into a pro peloton “My doctor said that I'm lucky to be alive and breathing. I told him that my house plants are alive and breathing. I'm only happy when I'm on two wheels and going 60 mph." -- Dave Cullinan, recovering from open-heart surgery and a heart attack at age 24 “There are three ways to pedal a bike. With the legs, with the lungs, or with the heart." -- Mandible Jones, Carpet Particles “Dairy Queen. God I dream about Dairy Queens." -- Greg LeMond, when asked what he thinks about during races in Europe “It's a love/hate relationship, and it's not until you come back that you remember how much you hate it." -- Sean Yates, on the Tour de France “Every minute of every day of the Tour de France was hard. There were always attacks going, which made it really nerve-wracking. One week I slept just ten hours because I was so exausted I couldn't sleep. I just lay in bed. Every nerve ending felt like it was exposed to rushing wind. You can't tell anyone how hard it is. You can't represent the suffering." -- Bob Roll “The problem with being a Tour de France winner is you always have that feeling of disappointment if you don't win again. That's the curse of the Tour de France." -- Greg LeMond “There simply is nothing else like it. And, as a test of physical and mental endurance it has no equal. Other sports may be as intense, as pressurized, as hard for short periods: But the Tour does on day after day after day. It's the only race in the world where you have to get a haircut halfway through." -- Chris Boardman “Do not touch -he is a god." -- Sports Minister General Antonelli, trying to disperse the crowd after Gino Bartali won the 1937 Tour de France "On the continent of Europe it is said that 21 July 1969 was an important day in world history. For two reasons. A man called Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and a man called Eddy Merckx won his first Tour de France." -- David Walsh, The Agony and the Ecstasy “Do your homework, because you'll never make money riding a bike." -- Greg LeMond's high-school history teacher “Lemond was in trouble. He had a bout of diarrhea. He rode by me with thirty kilometers to go, surrounded by his domestiques bringing him to the front. God the smell was terrible. It was rolling down his legs. I know if it was me I would stop. But then I am not capable of winning the Tour de France. He is, and I suppose that's the difference." -- Paul Kimmage “Lance is one in a million. Maybe one in ten million. The amount of fatigue-causing lactic acid produced by his cycling muscles is only one-fourth that of his competitors. There are few people with the ability walking the face of the earth." -- Edward Coyle, on Lance Armstrong “You're just keeping the jersey warm for the next rider." -- Lance Armstrong, on wearing yellow “Hinault -is he a superman or a fool?" -- Phil Liggett, as Bernard Hinault attacked in the mountains even though he had a five-minute lead in the '86 Tour de France “When I won the [world championship] jersey it was a surprise. I took it and I wore it for a year and you don't realize at a young age, at a young point in your career, what you have. Then when you lose the jersey, you see another person wearing it, you realize exactly what it was that you achieved. It means more now." -- Lance Armstrong “It's amazing how plain it is. It's just a regular Italian wool jersey with stripes across it. You look at it and say, 'That's sort of neat.' And my friends go, 'Whoa, man, that thing's way more than neat." -- Greg Herbold, on his world chamionship jersey “When I first net Lance in 1992, he was so strong, he could rip the cranks off the bike. Lance is Lance. There's absolutely nobody else in the world like him. He's not like the rest of us." -- Frankie Andreau “I had nobody waiting in the feed zone, so I just carried everything. It looked as if I had a little backpack on. Many times I ran out of food, many times I ran out of water. Coming through a feed zone, once in a while I would try to snag a bottle from somebody but, more times than not, they would pull it back. I'd start to throw away an empty water bottle during a race and then I'd think, "They cost five dollars each. This is going to cost me five dollars.' " -- Bobby Julich, on his independent 1993 season “I delighted in the supreme sense of freedom that comes with the first mile of a bicycle journey. No bills, no messy relationships, no job. All I needed was stuffed into four sturdy panniers." -- Dan Buettner, on beginning his 12,000 mile, 277 day ride across Africa “A bicycle ride is a flight from sadness." -- James E. Starrs, The Noiseless Tenor “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 rememberance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle." -- Ernest Hemingway, By-Line “The best rides are the ones where you bite off much more than you can chew, and live through it." -- Doug Bradbury “Bicycles have no walls." -- Paul Cornish “It's the first machine we master as children and the one we abandon when the seductions of the automobile take over." --Colman Mc Cartly “A bicycle hides nothing and threatens nothing. It is what it does, its form is its function." -- Stewart Parker, Spokesong “A raggedy ride beats a dressed up walk." -- Simon Peat “The bicycle is ergonomically tailored to the human form and psyche, yet I wonder if a hithero 'undiscovered' native tribe, when presented with a bicycle, wouldever be able to determine what on earth it was for." -- Borin Van Loon “The bicycle was the last advance in technology everybody understands. Anybody who can ride one can understand how it works." -- Stewart Parker, Spokesong “Ask a scientist to design a better violin and you get a dirty look. While the instrument seems simple, the science behind it is not. Such is bicycle stability. The machine appears uncomplicated but the theories governing its motion are nightmarish. Some things just can't be easily defined by physics and mathmatics. The interaction of the body, mind, muscles, terrain, gravity, air and bicycle are so complex that they defy exact mathematical solutions. The feel and handling of a bike borders on art. Like the violin, it's been largely designed by tough, inspiration and experimentation." -- Chester Kyle “Bicycles may change, but cycling is timeless." -- Zapata Espinoza “Light. Strong. Cheap. Pick two." -- Keith Bontrager “So perfect is the safety bicycle, that, if the rider had sufficient skill not to interfere with its action, it will travel straight ahead and keep its own balance." -- Scientific American, 1896 “A mountain bike is like your buddy. A road bike is your lover." -- Sean Coffey “The type of valve you have on your tire is determined by the type of fitting you have on your pump. For example, if your pump is equipped with a presta attachment, then your tires inevitably have schrader stems." -- Mike Keefe, The Ten Speed Commandments Hey diddle, diddle The bicycle riddle The strangest part of the deal. Just keep your accounts And add the amounts The 'sundries' cost more than the wheel. -- Anonymous 1896 poem “Variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles rather than by the artifice of a deraulleur? We are getting soft. Give me a fixed gear." -- Henri Desgrange, 1903 “There may ba a better land where bicycle saddles are made of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing is to get used to something hard." -- Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel “Cleaning a bike's like cleaning a toilet. If you do it regularly, it's fine and easy. If you wait, it's a truly disgustiong experience." -- Steve Gravenites “Few people realize that when you move the seatpost an innocent inch or two you are changing the action of every muscle in the lower limb which is involved in the pedaling action." -- “My mother and I have a difference of opinion. She thinks I should go see a shrink; I think I should buy a new bike." -- Alex Obbard “Life may not be about your bike, but it sure can help you get through it." -- Hallman “I found a whole philosophy of life in the wooing and winning of my bicycle." -- Frances Willard, How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle “I ride my bicycle to ride my bicycle." -- Zen proverb “Why should anybody steal a watch when they can steal a bicycle?" -- Flann O'Brein, The Third Policeman “More than any other emotion, melancholy is incompatible with bicycling." -- James E. Starrs, The Noiseless Tenor “If the constellations had been named in the twentieth century, I suppose we would see bicycles." -- Carl Sagan “The only regret I have in my life is never learning to ride a bicycle." -- Helen Hayes “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 “I like riding a bicycle build for two -by myself." -- Harry S. Truman “Such historians as record the tides of social manners and morals, have neglected the bicycle." -- John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga “Is it not time we stopped riding our bikes and began to drive them? Similarly, who ever drove a car? We ride them. Words Matter." -- Andrew Shrimpton “Cyclist have a right to the road too, you noisy, polluting, inconsiderate maniacs! I hope gas goes up to eight bucks a gallon!" -- The dad of "Calvin & Hobbes," responding to Calvin's request for a traffic safety poster idea “Bicycling is a big part of the future. It has to be. There's something wrong with a society that drives a car to work out in a gym." -- Bill Nye “The bicycle enables us to escape many other machines: We use it for transportaion, sport, recreation, and make it a way of life." --Jobst Brandt, The Bicycle Wheel “Possibly the tragedy of the bicycle is that it was invented too close in time to the car. In the historical scheme, pedal power hardly got under way before the combustion engine appeared and, not only took over the roads, but changed our view of machines. We've forgotten that pedal power is a potent form of energy." -- Richard Ballantine “Cycling is the sport of usefulness." -- Fred DeLong “You haven't lived until you've put on a police uniform and hopped on a mountain bike. My daily commute became four to five minutes faster because drivers fight each other to see who gets to let me into the lane I want. Drivers Would sooner cross the yellow line and hit a utility pole than breeze a cop on a bike. I've completed centuries and even won races, but this newfound respect is the sweetest cycling experience of all." -- Allan Howard “Few articles ever used by man have created so great a revolution in social conditions as the bicycle." --U.S. Census Report, 1900 “When one compares the energy consumed in moving a certain distance as a function of body weight fot a variety of animals and machines, one finds that an unaided walking man does fairly well (consuming about 0.75 calories per gram per kilometer), but he is not as efficient as a horse, a salmon or a jet transport. With the aid of a bicycle, however, the man's energy consumption for a given distance is reduced to about a fifth (roughly 0.15 calorie per gram per kilometer). Therefore, apart from increasing his unaided speed by a factor of three of four, the cyclist improves his efficiency rating to number one among moving creatures and machines." -- Stuart S. Wilson “The Bicycle is the common man among vehicles." -- James E. Starrs, The Noiseless Tenor “Women cyclist cannot protect their chastity." -- District Govenor of Ramasar, Iran, banning female riders “At least you can quit a bike race." -- Connie Carpenter Phinney, comparing childbirth to competitive cycling “I don't think I'll be riding my bike home, that's for sure." -- Mary Jane Reoch, after riding to the hospital to give birth to a six-pound, twelve-ounce baby girl “I think the most ridiculous sight in the world is a man on a bicycle, working away with his feet as hard as he possibly can, and believing that his horse is carrying him instead of, as anyone can see, he is carrying the horse. " -- George Bernard Shaw, An Unsocial Socialist “At first, cycling was denounced from the pulpit as a pastime on a par with drinking and gambling -deplorable at the best of times, and when indulged in on a Sunday, a sure road to hell." -- Gurdon S Leete “Cyclist are open-minded. Cyclist are egalitarian. Cyclist share a fellowship of the wheel that can overcome all political, social, racial and economic barriers. Execpt for recumbents." -- Ted Constantino “Mohammed was a walking Messenger. When the Moslems first saw Christian missionaries mounted upon bicycles, they stoned the gentle souls, for the contraption seemed to have come from the devil." -- William Saroan, from his introduction to The Noiseless Tenor When asked: "Why do you bike? You don't need to lose weight." I replied "I don't need to lose weight, because I bike" "Save the best and burn the rest." Memo on a biker's emergency ID badge. "He's obsessed with it. He now likes to do nothing but work out on his bike, and he does it with a frenzy that is reserved for people like Lance Armstrong." -- Mark McKinnon, President Bush's media advisor and frequent cycling companion "No matter how slow you ride, I can still draft off you...." "The bicycle will accomplish more for women's sensible dress than all the reform movements that have ever been waged." -- Author Unknown, from Demerarest's Family Magazine, 1895 " My husband left me. He also left his bike magazines and his bike. Evenings were quiet on my own so I got to reading wich led to riding. Now I'm 20 pounds lighter and 100 times happier. Now he wants me and his bike back. He can have the bike. I have new wheels and a new man who knows how to care for his equipment ... and his woman. " -- Adi Moshkovitz (from Bicycling/ August 07) "Cycling is much more fun than dating....I still get to chase women, and sometimes catch them. But, when I get dropped, at least there is no emotional attachment." -- T.A. Melton "It's just a hill - get over it!" "I may not know where I'm going, But I'm on my way." "You could save a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Shimano." A local cycling group that rides out along the Atlantic beach has a jersey that reads, "The wind is always blowing, shut up and ride." To a kid, nothing says "independence" like a bicycle. "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 "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." -- Arthur Conan Doyle, in an article for Scientific American, 1896. "Be at one with the universe. If you can't do that, at least be at one with your bike." -- Lennard Zinn "You should cycle for pleasure not measure!" "It is my thought that clean living and a strict observance of the golden rule of true sportsmanship are foundation stones without which a championship structure cannot be built." —- Marshall "Major" Taylor in The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World "I had this baby custom-made in Tuscany using titanium blessed by the Pope. I took it to a wind tunnel and it disappeared. It weighs less than a fart and costs more than a divorce." "Astana is the strongest team I've ever ridden. We have 5 riders that have been Tour top five: Armstrong, Contador, Levi, Kloden, Zubeldia. Theoretically any of them could be very close but I think more realistically that you could perhaps put 3 guys on the podium if you did it right. Exciting for us. Not exciting for the race (laughing). But exciting for us." -- Lance Armstrong., early 2009 "Up early. Have 5 hours today w/ some motor pacing towards the end. Have to get ready for race pace. It's only been 1274 days w/o a pro race." -- Lance Armstrong, on his twitter feed 1/7/2009 "The riders come out, knights for the tournament, neck to thigh in slippery lycra with the sheen of deep space condoms, faired helmets on their heads like the glans from another galaxy and neoprene pixyboots to slide the air around their feet, mounted on gaudily caparisoned donkeys — the carbon fiber monocoque monoblade." -- James Waddington, Bad to the Bone "It's depressing when a butterfly passes you going up hill". -B.M. "It may seem odd that cycling (often) seems to be less about riding than it is about getting the ride over with as soon as possible. . . Enjoyable things should be savored. . . Racing a century is the cycling equivalent of shotgunning a beer. Eventually you learn that sipping is more enjoyable- and it gets you just as drunk in the end." - The Bike Snob, Bicycling, October 2009 A Story that appeared in a Cycling Magazine a few years ago was written by a guy was trying to cope with being alone with a broken marriage and a divorce when he found out his wife had been unfaithful. His Mother kept suggesting that he get therapy to help him through but he had found that cycling, in this case, Mountain Biking helped him cope and wanted to buy a new bike. The closing statement in the article was something like this… "…I decided to tell my mother that I had found a therapist who was willing see me any day of the week at any hour for as long as it took for a one time flat payment of $1600 and that his name was Gary Fisher..." So these three cyclist go out for a late-fall training ride. They're hammering along when suddenly they hit a spot of black ice and fly off a cliff. When the first cyclist opens his eyes, and angel is standing before him. "Who do you wish to be?" asks the angel. "Huh?" says the cyclist. "Look, you rode well and lived well. When you get to heaven you can choose to transform yourself into any rider who ever lived." Just then a racer in wool shorts and short-sleeved jersey whooshes by on a green bike. "Hey!" says the cyclist, "That's --" "One of your friends," says the angel, "He chose to be Fausto Coppi. So who do you wish to be?" At that moment The Cannibal rips by them. "Aww man," says the cyclist. "My other friend already took Eddy, didn't he?" "Oh, no," says the angel "Your other friend lived. That's just God. He wishes he was Eddy Merckx." 25 years or so ago, I was part of a group from Chicago that had chartered a bus to go ride an event in Ohio called TOSRV (Tour of the Scioto River Valley) — 210 miles in two days over the Mother's Day weekend. On the bus while heading back to Chicago, several of us were talking about our experiences on the ride and how long it had taken us to cover the hundred miles each day. One of the group on the bus with us was Phyllis Harmon, the grande dame of American cycling (she was one of the people responsible for the reorganization and revitalization of the League of American Wheelmen back in the mid 1960s). After listening to the conversation for a few minutes, she asked us if we really enjoyed riding our bikes. We were unanimous in our declarations that of course we enjoyed cycling. She then quietly asked, "Then why are you in such a hurry to get done?" It got really quiet for a couple of minutes..... Racing is one facet of the sport of cycling, but not every ride has to be a race. Yehuda seems to have been born knowing this; I learned it that long-ago day in May; and Joe has yet to realize the fact that the ride itself is the reason to ride. -- Bicycling Bill "When I'm riding my bicycle I feel like a Buddhist who is happy just to enjoy his mundane existence." -Robin Williams "It's the closest you can get to flying." -Robin Williams "I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. Humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing about a third of the way down the list.... That didn't look so good, but then someone at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle and a man on a bicycle blew the condor away. That's what a computer is to me: the computer is the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c__DV-Ul9AM -- Steve Jobs in an interview given for the 1990 documentary 'Memory and Imagination' ?"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