Ride a Bike. Worship on Wheels.

An ode to bicycles, long-time human companions opening up new perspectives

“My beautiful dress! It’s all torn up!” I cried. I was five years old. I had ridden my bike down a steep pedestrian bridge across a highway in the forest near my house. My dad yelled to go slow. I just kept pedaling. My front wheel slipped in the gravel at the bottom of the bridge. I fell. My knees bled and it must have hurt. Yet I don’t remember the pain. I remember the torn red summer dress, my Oma fixing it—and mostly, the thrill of flying down that bridge, going faster than I had ever gone before.

I recalled that long-ago fall when my front wheel slipped on gravel again last week. This time, I wasn’t going fast. I was riding slowly, carefully down a steep gravely slope on Catalina Island. My bike was loaded with heavy pannier bags on the rear rack, carrying all I needed for a multi-day solo back-country camping trip. My thigh is still bruised, and I don’t care. What I’ll remember is pedaling hard uphill across the island, the sun not quite up behind the hills I needed to cross. Dust hung vaguely over the red gravel, left behind by the rare ranger’s truck that passed many minutes ago. It was just me and my bike and the 1,400-foot climb. My legs were burning as my feet pushed hard on the silver pedals of my bike, my body an organic extension of the steel machine that carried me up the hill. That long-ago thrill returned, powering the cybernetic connection between the machine and me.  

I love biking. It’s my way of meditating. It’s finding myself in the unity of my body, my mind, and the minds of those who made this machine.  

Bikes have been human companions for two centuries. One of the first mass-produced marvelous machines, bikes opened up new paths and perspectives. They empowered women to travel without needing to rely on men and their horses and carriages. They began the movement to build better roads. They benefited from and drove forward the development of precision parts and the machine tools needed to build them. (It turns out making a bicycle chain and bearings accurately and cheaply is quite the technological mountain to scale!)

Bikes are the most energy-efficient way to travel. On a bike, I can travel three to four times as fast as walking, using a fifth of the energy. A human on a bike is the most energy-efficient mover on earth—more efficient than a cheetah or a condor or a car.

When I ride my bike, I enjoy the effortless motion made possible by innumerable inventions. I’m propelled by a partnership of power between my body and the many minds who made this machine. The rubber on my tires grips the pavement as I wind my way up the hairpin turns on the initial climb. The well-lubed chain glides from low to high gears as the incline demands, obeying small flicks of my fingers on the friction shifters. My legs spin at a steady cadence as the gears adjust the power needed to compensate for the steepness of the terrain. My bike’s strong, silver-gray steel frame dampens the bumps in the road.

When I ride, I am in the moment. I am in the world. I inhale the pungent smell of the sagebrush and smell the dust in the air. I hear the water trickle over rocks down a ravine, the waves hitting the hidden shore, and the trill of birds who fly out of the bushes as I pass. My bare arms are cooled by the wind in the morning shadows and warmed by the sun when it finally crests over the hills I climb.

I don’t think of the men and women who invented and improved the bicycle and its many parts. I don’t think of the passionate people who designed my bike or of the skilled craftsmen who built its beautiful lugged steel frame. 

Yet as my muscles and my machine move me amidst the island’s scenery full of sounds and sights, I am propelled in partnership with minds and mechanics unseen.

Riding my bike is my mindfulness practice. I worship on wheels.