I have ideas that pop into my head. Usually they are spin-offs of someone else's great ideas. Ralph Steadman was a crazy artist with a passion of gritty life. I've linked one of his books on my book list on the right. I read the book many years ago. He did a fictional history of whiskey, or whisky as he spells it. I want to write a fictional history about the art of bicycles. I do not have a way with words. Most times I get tidbits that are good ideas but endings do not come to me. So here is a rough draft of this idea. I hope it is entertaining and someone gets a kick out of it.
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Man was given a special gift, the gift of free movement. We can move like no other animal in the world. We can run, swim and climb. Our skills may not be the best in any of those three categories but we excel quite well regardless. What other animal do you know that can scale a shear cliff wall? What animal can swim and hold its breath while exploring ocean floors? We may only run 15 MPH but that may be just fast enough. Or is it?
This free movement empowers human kind. It allowed development in all those areas as well. We realize our limitations. We can only run so fast, dive so deep and climb so high. So man invented other modes of transportation, tools to allow him to dive deeper and means in which to concur new hieghts. The early cavemen knew their limitations. The development of tools would be necessary for them to get an edge. They built spears, arrows, hammers and other rudimentary devices. Cavement even tampered with the idea of improving their limitation of travel.
Their lack of mechanics proved their devices to be impractical. Especially with the absense of roads and the existance of unforgiving terrain.
Mayans explored devices of alternate travel as well. The images from their history are hard to decipher. There are many theories about the power source that was used on these early devices. It is not understood if the Mayans used slaves to push these devices or power straight from the Gods propelled them along their primitive roads.
Even Egyptians demanded more freedom of movement. The image below is a drawing taken by a college student from inside of one of the famous pyramids. The red lines are the cracks in the rock. The imagery shows that Egyptians regarded alternate modes of transportation as being closer to the Gods. This allowed them to move unlike other animals in the kingdom.
Aborigines down under tried the concept as well. Their ideas were flawed like the caveman. Designs were drawn on the inside of cave walls. The only thing we can assume is that one of their designs was smashed in a testing accident. The handlebars may have become what is known as a boomerang.
The closest piece of art that we have to today's date that truly uses all the concepts of todays machines came from Japan. The Japanese have always been good at taking an idea and making it more efficient and useful. The same goes for travel. The use of a pulley system helped propel people. This sketch below is a copy of an ancient Japanese mural of the early machine. The basic principles are all there. The Japanese did ignore this device and rather spend most of their time sharpening blades and perfecting other arts.
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