“The cyclist should love his bicycle.”

    Think of what they are saying.  Does the runner love his shoes?  Does the boxer love his gloves?  Does the golfer love his balls?  I don’t know, but I know that the cyclist is supposed to love his bicycle.  The Italian Cycling Federation, which was led for a while by the great racer, frame builder, and bicycle innovator, Cino Cinelli, says so.      

    The next sentence in chapter five reads, “It is therefore up to the coach to see that the cyclist devotes the utmost attention to his bicycle, since the maintenance of the bicycle is not simply a fact of aesthetics or education, but constitutes to some extent a mirror of the personality of the cyclist.”

    There is some blending of the different loves, though.  This is, perhaps, as evident in a cyclist’s love for his bicycle as anywhere else.  Those of us who have been married a long time understand that the love we first feel for our future spouse is not the love that keeps us together through long decades of challenge, but that first spark of love never entirely fades away.  It surprises us now and again with a rushes of affection.

    The cyclist who suffers with sore wrists and elbows, the one who struggles up every hill, or feels cramped on the bicycle will have a much harder time developing love for it.  The cyclist who cares only for the bicycle as a means to an end -- we’ve seen or heard of the European racer throwing his bicycles in a rage of furry or declaring he will never ride again after his retirement -- will have a difficult time developing love for the bicycle.  But, the real and deep love that sometimes develops in the heart of the cyclist often comes slowly and as a surprise.

    Sometimes it is a life long love that begins when a boy gets his first bike and finds his horizons broadened; or when a little girl gets that pink bicycle with the tassels and finds she can soon keep up with her brother and his friends as they ride through the neighborhood.  When I see kids on bikes, I do my best to encourage them.  When I lived in a small community called Maytown, I was known as the man who could fix flats and make chains stop squeaking.  I had a job then where I was paid about what I was worth and there wasn’t much money so I patched tubes with pieces cut out of other tubes and glued them on with rubber cement from a big jar Nina used for Kid’s Klub art projects.  I think all those kids drifted away from their bicycles as they grew up, but they might return to them.

    There is also that love for a bicycle that comes to an adult.  Something spurs a woman or man to buy a bicycle; not a Walmart bike that will get ridden a couple of times and then be left to age in the garage or in a shed out back, but a decent bicycle.  At first, it might seem like a stupid idea, but something inspires that person to keep at it.  Soon, the lungs stop burning, the legs begin to tone up, and the miles pile on.  This is the person who can become a cyclist who loves the bicycle, but it will have to become a love of labor along the way because the bicycle is not an indifferent love  it is a demanding love, and it is probably mostly those who accept the demands that understand the love.

    In his book about the Hells Angles, Hunter Thompson relates a story about some boys stopping at the curb where some Hells Angles are fawning over their motorcycles.  One of the boys says, “Cool bikes.”  and one of the Hells Angles says, “Thanks, they’re all we have.”

    Fortunately, bicycles aren’t all we have, but I am continually surprised to find that even with my great appreciation for them, they keep teaching me that they are more than I expect.  It’s easy to love them when you get to that place.  

    So love your bicycle and take it for a nice ride.  I’m going to end this blog and do that very thing myself.