on phaltweariness - the automobile

  Today's city streets are pitted and rough as if mauled by large and powerful beasts, and the souls of the people who drive upon are similarly abused. Aggression and impatience descend without fail upon the poor buggers who drive upon today's maligned avenues.

  We the Smog Riders of the America Phaltscape (the asphalt landscape) look often with pity upon our neighbors of the road, they who spend long hours strapped tightly to chairs which are in turn bolted to the floors of a tiny metal boxes. After spending years in such torturous environments, they will have forgotten the satisfaction of moving their own bodies through space/time using nothing other than living muscle and some metal tubes bolted to a pair of pneumatic tires. Rather than the good sweat that stands upon the skin of the bicyclist after a healthy cross-town slog, the sweat of the car driver will be distressed and foul, an oozing sheen that tends to creep through his furrowed brow as he worries about the skyrocketing price of petroleum.

  The smog riding street-art vagabond knows as well to avoid paying for petrol as she does to remain always vigilant of the withering and debilitating affects of phaltweariness – it is her duty to preserve the chaotic super-abundance of Street Art, and to record for Posterity as much of it as she can. To fulfill this task, and to keep her feet on the pedals, she has learned the limits of her body's tolerance for dehydration, pain, and exhaustion, and she knows how to make herself well again.

  Given the phaltweariness, the stressed out drivers, and the miles spend cycling through the phaltscape, how does the vagabond capture every unique work of street art that is at risk of being torn down as soon as it goes up? She does not. But she does what she can do, photographing what pictures might cross her path with the road grit fouling her mouth and a song filling her heart.

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

on simplicity in cycling

  Increasing numbers of urban bicyclists are abandoning multi-gear propulsion systems in favor of less complex mechanisms with fewer moving parts. In theory, a mechanical system with few moving parts is less prone to failure than a system with many moving parts, as the more complex system contains more elements that could fail (think of the many levers, wires, and gear-wheels on a ten-speed bicycle compared to the single gear-wheel on a child's bike). Among the individuals rediscovering the fixed-gear or single-gear propulsion system are urban bicycle messengers.

  The rugged and far-ranging operator known as the bicycle messenger traverses dozens of miles of urban landscape in varying weather conditions carrying heavy and unwieldy packages on her back. In her effort to maximize her workable hours by reducing repair- and maintenance-related down time, the bike messenger put to use one of the most simple bicycle-specific propulsion systems she could find – the fixed-gear.

  While the simplicity and reliability of the fixed-gear propulsion system has gained wide popularity in recent years, I have re-discovered an even more simple system for propelling myself forward by bicycle – by pushing off with the foot from vertical surfaces or from the ground. While perusing randomly a tome-like dictionary at Central Library, I stumbled across a picture of the early bicycle, upon which the rider moves forward by pushing off from poles, hydrants, curbstones, etc.

  In this picture we can see that the device is missing standing-fins upon which the operator might rest his feet and balance (which would be included on a modern design). There is no mechanical propulsion system, and the wheels roll freely in any direction. On the one hand, this device is merely a large, steerable scooter upon which the operator can sit; the omission of a propulsion system other than the kicking leg may be too much for the velocipedist who faces hills or whose routes lack vertical surfaces. On the other hand, urban environments are filled with vertical surfaces the operator might kick from (electrical poles, parking meters, and street signs, to name a few), and most of Earth's cities are flat and covered with layers of asphalt (which makes for a smoother ride).

  People with whom I have spoken have voiced their disdain for the fixed-gear bicyclist – they claim he has retreated too far into the bicycle's past. They deride him for seeming to have abandoned needlessly the improvements made to Baron von Drais' original design. Perhaps, however, the smog-riding bike messenger he has not retreated far enough.

  Long live the vondrais!

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp

encylopediamericanifesto entry - phaltweary II

   Persons suffering from phaltweariness tend to make calls, whoops, war-whoops, cat-calls, hoots, whistles, hollers, brays, and shouts loudly and often. Making loud noises with the speaking organ saves lives – absent a car's horn, uttering a piercing blast of blood-curdling gibberish is a proper way for a cyclist to signal to a nearby motor-vehicle operator that he is about to be cut off mercilessly. As to the general appearance of a peedubser (phaltweariness sufferer):

  His sun-dazzled eyes will dance with a light of their own, especially at night; his phaltburnt lips will be cracked and fissured; his dry tongue will grate across the roof of his mouth; and from his throat will issue forth a cry so foul, so loathsome, as to make the even the most wicked human among us tremble with abject loathing.

  The peedubzer will sound a signature call regardless of audience, circumstance, or location – although she war-whoops to signal lane changes and close calls alike, by yelling she loosens briefly the fetters upon her soul, her vitality radiant and pure, with every joyous breath celebrating life's fleeting tumble.

  Spes Mea In Ratio Est – 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp