Wheels in Motion

The following from the Air France in-flight magazine on the way back from Sweden tickled me...

It should be on sale in a drugstore, available on prescription. The bicycle is without a doubt the best medicine for the city. And for the countryside and mountains as well. It is a universal language. It moves silently, occasionally ringing out or tinkling (the Amsterdam sound), placing a layer of rubber between our calves and the asphalt. It's the ideal synapse (contact between two cells) for understanding the city with its melancholy moods, its utopias and paradoxes. Its odors and aromas. You can cross it without disturbing anyone, stopping within the space of 20 centimeters. You can step off it, and out of its frame, to gain a fresh perspective. Insults aren't necessary, as cyclists are generally people of goodwill. The world may feel fast and furious, a rough and tumble place, but the cyclist is immune to all that, arriving more or less at the same time as those rushing headlong about. So we should all take to two wheels to discover cities, beginning with our own, gliding along like a finger sliding across a misted-up window, gathering the sweet nectar of an endless leisurely ride: gazes exchanged with others, a patch of sky, a new place for coffee. The bike is the voice of freedom, but also of knowledge. You can talk to people on a bike, for speech is within its sphere, not drowned out by engine noise. What I most like is the sensual dimension of cycling, when your body merges with the flow of the air, and you become part of a different cosmos, leaving no trace behind, just a sillage. For the bicycle is akin to the realm of perfumes. Like them, it has a changing, evanescent, silent dimension, verging on essence. It is essential.  François Simon

This edition majored on cycling and there was an article on Japan's Shimanami Kaido bike-way which is a "spectacular 60-kilometer road-and-bridge network connecting Japan's main island of Honshu with Shikoku (the nation's fourth largest island), it spans six smaller islands in the process and features bike and pedestrian lanes for its entire length." Wow, how I would love to do that route! Though on second thoughts I'd have to hire a bike and maybe there'd be too many people...

Japan's Shimanami Kaido

And I found this cartoon which I just about understood the gist of despite the vernacular. Click to enlarge the image.