morning ride...

Slicing noiseless through the frigid park, uncluttered, kinetic, shoulders low and chin jutting (or vice versa), held off the unforgiving pavement by a hand-tooled chrome coat hanger with the merest hint of wheels, he seeks satori in the slightly gritty wind.

It’s Bikeman, soft-hat hero, champion of clean air, quietude and motorless machismo. And his time has arrived. He is Homo sapiens at peace with the machine. Pollution-free transportation is his, in its purest form: superbike, bella machina, hobby horse of the gods, the perfect evocation of Italian finesse a few pounds heavier than a Gucci moccasin, eleven gears more than a Ferrari, as starkly beautiful as a Giacometti torso. See what it does to him! Under a little housepainter hat stenciled with mythic names, his eyes are slits of distilled concentration. His hands, in little gloves with holes that drive women mad, rest cat-like on the handlebars, ready to spring forward in a trice to the brakes. His legs? Veritable pistons. The discipline of the samurai pales. The machine cost Bikeman more than $300, and any fool can see it has made him different. ...


---- New York Magazine, early 1970s, Jim Langley. reproduced here without permission, but with supreme respect.


[I tried something new with today's photo. Any and all opinions are welcome.]