Industrialized Cyclist Notepad

I appreciate the shout out from evworld.com, but fear what might happen when they reach the Prius chapter.

Writing about the “simple fun” of riding a bicycle in “The Cyclist’s Manifesto,” Robert Hurst put the technology in historical perspective, stating:

“Fun is apolitical. Fun has no agenda, other than to make you smile. And yet even the person who climbs onto a bike for the simple purpose of having fun or getting a whiff of fresh air will be saddled with the baggage of history, accompanied by a cloud of suspicion hanging around a machine that has at various times been intimately associated with women’s liberation, white power, political sneakiness, Asian communism, sabotage and spying and other rebel mischief, the Viet Cong, European socialism, illegal immigration, serial drunk drivers, anarchy, privilege, anti-car fanaticism, and multiple manifestations of youthful antiestablishment activities. This mishmash of historical symbolism is now woven into the collective subconscious of the nation. The bicycle is loaded.”

Until reading “Manifesto,” I had no idea that such an elegant and efficient machine carried so much historical baggage from across such a wide political and philosophical spectrum, from revolutionary communism to the epitome of capitalism, Henry Ford, himself, whose first ‘automobile’, the Quadracycle,’ was built largely from repurposed bicycle parts.

via Seven Solid Reasons Conservatives Should Love Bicycles : URBAN MOBILITY ON EVWORLD.COM.