Gil W and I were the two. We’ve gone on the Ride For the Arts for the past fifteen years. I suspect Gil was hoping for rain. I, however, didn’t even question whether or not I actually wanted to go, until my alarm buzzed at 5 AM. Too late to cancel, so instead of questioning, I set up a quest: to find someone besides me riding a single-speed coaster-brake bike in the event.
It was a 5-mile pedal to reach the sea of white-shirted bikers.
“Nothing very appealing or interesting about those shirts,” I commented. “Most people never wear them again once the ride is over.”
“I use them for undershirts in winter,” said Gil.
“Think of how great it would look if the shirts were all different colors, a rainbow coalition for the arts.”
“It’s funny,” he said. “This is a ride for the arts, and it has nothing to do with art.”
“Good point. Say, I have an idea. Each shirt should have a large square in which the bikers can do their own paintings or drawings or poems.”
That at least is the gist of our chatter as we joined the crowds, Gil on his 3-speed, I on my single speed. None of the riders visible to us, and we saw a lot of them as they floated past, rode single or three speed bikes, just ten, or twelve, or however high they go.
And we didn’t run into people we knew. That seemed strange. “Maybe because they’re all younger than we are,” I observed. “Do you see anyone who looks our age?” So we had a new challenge: to find antiquated riders. Not too many of them, either, unless they were lagging behind us.
And the ear-splitting music at the post-ride party was also geared towards a younger crowd with gears, not towards those still using coaster brakes. In a world desperately in need of simplification, even the bikes get more complex. That would be fine, if Detroit started to make bicycle cars with gears and hand brakes so we could become energy independent.
