It was dusk, and in the landscape of cold concrete, a bright yellow bike, and four cheerfully-painted hoops intended for chaining bicycles jumped out of the dull gray surroundings. The bright oval hoops resembled the iconic rings of the Olympic competitions. Someone rested their bicycle on a trip to the store, or perhaps on an appointment to meet a friend. What story could this bicycle tell?
As a kid growing up in Germany, I rode a green three-speed bicycle with a whirring generator pressed against the wheel to power its lights at night. It was a 9-mile bike trip from my house along the Rhine River to my elementary school, and it was my brother’s and my favorite weekend expedition to spend time with our friends.
My green bicycle also served me well when my mother sent me to the next village to purchase small amounts of groceries. I would inevitably treat myself with gummi bears at the store, so I particularly savored these expeditions. On one occasion, coming home with a loaf of bread strapped to the rack on the back wheel’s fender, suddenly my bicycle squealed to an abrupt halt; the back wheel suddenly froze in place, leaving a long skid mark, and me very nearly dismounting into thin air over the handlebars. As I barely controlled my near-disastrous dismount, I was pelted with bits of who-knows-what, flying in every direction. It was bread. A bump in the road had dislodged my cargo – the loaf of bread – and flipped it into the air and launched it into my spokes, where it was effectively shredded, pieces propelled in all 360 degrees. My pride bruised, but spokes unbent, I hastened to the bakery to replace the load—and refresh my stash of gummi bears for my second ride home to my waiting mother.
A few years ago, I saw a tangle of bicycles on a street in Amsterdam, heaped together and temporarily discarded by their owners, who were rendezvousing with friends or completing essential errands. A strange scene, I thought, bikes piled up like that. I stepped closer, quietly, cautiously sneaking up on their cold frames, worn seats and spindly tires.
Until my ears adjusted, I mistook the sound for birds twittering. Gradually I could make it out—the sound of joking, of laughter, of stories coming from the bicycles themselves, about their usual mounted riders: the owner whose backside had so overgrown its throne that the embarrassed bicycle seat shuddered to feel his royal rear descend upon it. The gears gushed in howls of laughter over retelling their own story of the chain pulling loose from the sprockets just at the moment its rider pulled up to an attractive maiden’s bicycle, upending him and launching him upon his bottom, effectively removing the seat of his pants. And then the most tender story–a woman’s battered purple bike, at the top of the heap of partying bikes, who admitted her fear on being hastily discarded at the hospital door by her owner – the rider – a woman about to give birth. Her owner possessed no other means of transport to medical care. The protracted hours had ground by with no news of the pregnant woman. Finally, worried over her well-being, the old purple bike heard the triumphant howls from the husband who had arrived late. His wife had delivered a baby girl. Carefully, the new father had then loaded the purple bike into the car, tenderly touching spokes and handlebars while affirming, “Good bike. Faithful bike….”
Like a tear on a child’s cheek, a drop of rain fell on the purple bicycle’s worn frame and slowly worked its way down, until it fell on the other bicycles below.
