My brother is a self-proclaimed bike activist. He has covered tens of thousands of miles riding bicycles and promotes the bicycle as his preferred method of personal transportation. He has made several trans-continental trips on bicycles and this week left Atlanta, Georgia heading toward the Pacific Northwest. He may be coming through Rapid City on this trip. He is riding several “rails to trails” trails on this trip and the 109-mile Mickelson Trail at our end of South Dakota has caught his eye.

I enjoy riding my bicycle for fun and exercise, but haven’t begun to think of using it for long trips. This week is the third week of a four-week stretch in which I will drive a thousand miles. Two weeks ago, I taught in Hastings Nebraska. Last week, I went to Big Timber, Montana. This week I have the annual meeting of the South Dakota Conference in Aberdeen. Next week I return to Hastings for a second round of teaching. A bicycle just isn’t the solution to my particular lifestyle.

Of course my brother would question my lifestyle and ask if all of those trips are truly necessary. Being brothers certainly doesn’t make us the same.

I wonder if my brother caught the story about Felix Gircia, who made an eleven-foot tall bicycle that he rides around Havana, Cuba. Gircia has received so much attention for the vehicle that he is currently working on an even taller bike. The new bike will be 5.5 meters (18 feet) tall when it is finished. It takes two assistants for Gircia to climb up the bicycle. I assume that it takes a couple of assistants for him to stop as well. Perhaps he will be able to develop a technique for starting and stopping by leaning the bike against a building. At any rate he can certainly capture people’s attention as he rides by.

Meanwhile, at the Union Cycliste Internationale velodrome in Aigle, Switzerland, Robert Marchand of France set a new world record on Friday. He covered a distance of 24.251 meters (about 15 miles) in an hour. That doesn’t sound like a very fast ride, until you understand that Marchand is now the record holder for the most distance covered in one hour on a bicycle for persons over the age of 100 years. I’m pretty sure that if I can ride a bike at all at the age of 100 I’ll be pleased.

It took more than 100,000 cyclists to set the record for the world’s largest bicycle parade. Starting from 1,000 official checkpoints around the country of Taiwan, each person rode for about three miles. The riding might not have been that impressive, but the organization required to get the entry into the Guinness Book of World Records was pretty impressive.

June is the month when the riders of Penny-farthings gather in London each year. These bicycles were the norm in the 1800’s in Europe. Before the invention of bicycles with chains and gears, the way to increase the speed of a bicycle was to increase the size of the wheel that had the pedals. There was, of course a limit to the size of the wheel because riders have limits to the length of their legs. Actually the high wheeled bicycles had a relatively short run in history. The first such bikes appeared around 1870. Bicycles with chains and gears appeared in the late 1890’s. The direct-pedal bicycles enjoyed about two decades of popularity in the United States after Albert Pope began manufacturing the Columbia bicycle near Boston.

Here is a picture of a way to gain increased speed on a bicycle. The picture by the Associated Press was taken in Pakistan. It probably takes a bit of skill to ride the motorcycle with the possibility of uneven forces caused by a bicycle on each side. But the real challenge, I think, must be for the bicycle riders, who have to steer with one hand and hold the rope with the other while balancing a loaded bicycle. The article accompanying the picture doesn’t say how fast they were going. I suspect this mode of transportation isn’t for the fainthearted.

As long as I am on the subject of bicycles, the issue of how to carry one’s luggage is always one to consider. I have been hauling a considerable amount of things with me as I travel these weeks. When I teach, I have books and other supplies. I always travel with a computer these days. And there is the matter of my clothing and other personal items. The cyclist in this picture has come up with a solution, but it doesn’t seem to be quite the perfect way to carry one’s luggage. The picture came from the European Press Agency and was taken by Dominic Favre. The cyclist is not identified, but the picture was taken before the start of a cycle race in Martigny, Switzerland.

The bicycle is a wonderfully elegant invention that continues to be a very good method of transportation for many people. It provides the freedom of individual transportation within at an affordable price. Well-made bicycles last for a very long time and maintenance is easy. The environmental impact of a bicycle is very light compared to an automobile. Other than the resources required for their manufacture, they consume no additional fuel as they carry about their owners. In a country where most of us are overweight they offer the added advantage of healthy exercise.

It is certainly true that I could be riding a bicycle more than I do. And I could be driving a car less than I do. Both would be good for me and good for the world in which I live. Having said that, it seems unlikely that I will be making a total switch away from driving in the next few weeks. I’m not in shape for a thousand miles a week on a bicycle, and my schedule is too filled with other activities to make time for riding long distances.

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