I'm looking for some inspired and inspiring thoughts on cycling to help me promote cycle specific fundraising challenge.
It's to get some cycling provision for an autism charity, specifically working with people with high-functioning autism and Asperger's Syndrome. I want to write a short piece to get people thinking about how enlighening it can be to realise where riding a bike can take you (metaphorically and literally) and enrich your life. All the inspiring, positive stuff.
I guess how I'm looking at it is that getting on a bicycle can be hugely liberating and empowering if your daily living is constrained by what most of us regard as mundane challenges. Being given the chance to try it for the first time could be great in itself. For me, when I was growing up, my bike was massively important to me. It opened up a larger world for me to explore - I was lucky to grow up where I did and each venture out encouraged me to make another to go a bit further. I'm still on something like that trajectory now. It was also a bit like Graeme Obree's escape from the bullies but although that's easy to understand it's hardly a positive analogy to make for the purpose I intend.
For the people that I hope would take advantage of being able to access cycling in a supported and safe way it may open up all kinds of possibilities. There's a lad I support who had lived 22 years at the foot of a very small hill on the edge of his town and until last summer had never ventured up it. It's a quarter of mile from his house to the flat topped hill which is all open meadows and although only about a hundred feet higher than the buildings down the lane the views are fantastic. Now, he's interested in knowing about wildlife and flora on the hill. It took a little bit of encouragement and support and widened his world a little. There's probably no one on this forum who wouldn't have spent most of their childhood in those meadows on that hill had they grown up there.
So that's kind of what I'm pondering.
Thoughts? Quotes? Personal epiphanies?
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. ~H.G. Wells
Sounds like a great project...good luck with it. Any of these suitable?
Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.
H. G. Wells
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
Albert Einstein
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. ~
Ernest Hemingway
When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle.
Elizabeth West
The bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine.
John Howard
They're good. I particularly like the Einstein quote.
It's not about the bike - can't remember who...
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." Mark Twain
Anyone got anything more than quotes? (fine as they are thankyouverymuch).
"No shame in pushing" ~Me
"Einstein needs to learn how to track stand"
Max Planck
There's a really nice piece on the back of the book 'its all about the bike' by robert penn. Have tried to google it but cant find a pic - the heading is 'a bicyle saves my life every day' and it really does sum up the buzz you get from riding
this would be a really good trail done the other way
me
There's a b&w film on youtube somewhere about "How a bicycle is made" in the old Raleigh factory. I've watched it a few times with different people, and the bit at the end, the summing up extolling the virtues of the bicycle, puts a lump in my throat every time. I'm not old, so it's not nostalgia or anything. Odd. Maybe just pride in the bicycle and appreciation for the good times...
Well worth a google, it's easy to find.
When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.Conan Doyle
I always like this one
Good stuff. That Conan Doyle quote sums up what I went through a few years ago. Splendid.
I've just ordered 'It all about the bike' but I'd quite like to read that section to help me write over the weeekend. I found the youtube clip and will watch it tonight when I have more time.
I found it:
‘The bicycle saves my life every day. If you’ve ever experienced a moment of awe or freedom on a bicycle; if you’ve ever taken flight from sadness to the rhythm of two spinning wheels, or felt the resurgence of hope pedalling to the top of a hill with the dew of effort on your forehead; if you’ve ever wondered, swooping bird-like down a long hill on a bicycle, if the world was standing still; if you have ever, just once, sat on a bicycle with a singing heart and felt like an ordinary man touching the gods, then we share something fundamental. We know it’s all about the bike.”
Wow.
Like that quote.
This clip always makes me want to get out, and long for the high heat of summer beating down as I ascend a high mountain pass - obviously not our typical summer weather though eh? From dramatisation of Gino Bartali story, music by Ennio Morricone and Bartali is played by one of the baddies from Prince Caspian.
Glad you found it - i actually went into waterstones on my lunch to take a pic of the book for you but they didn't have one.
🙂
Pretty much got the same job, words don't it just justice nothing can describe the moment just stick a picture up. Out of interest who's your employer..
Pretty much got the same job, words don't it just justice nothing can describe the moment just stick a picture up. Out of interest who's your employer..
Pretty much got the same job, words don't it just justice nothing can describe the moment just stick a picture up. Out of interest who's your employer..
The bicycle is a comfortable and cheap way of getting about.A great boon to man.
Ideal for shopping, easy to park, handy for work.
A faithful friend ever ready to take tired workers back home, and after work to bring relaxation, health and happiness.
From the end of the film Nedrapier was talking about.
One from an Aesop Rock tune that I've always liked...
This cat is asking if I've seen his bit of lost passion.
I told him yeah, but only when I pedaled past him.
In racing; "if you aren't going forward, you're going backwards".
Well I've just made up a flyer and used 'The bicycle saves my life every day' quote on that. A good use of time that I feel less regrettable about not being able to use to crunch some miles in preparation for my event as I have an inflamed knee.
Adjustablewench, thanks for looking for the book. I'm looking forward to reading it as right now I'm struggling through 'Walden', a book that isn't any where near as inspiring as I was lead to believe. Also, thanks for your user name. 🙂
Bing, I work for Autism Initiatives. Funnily enough, I put this flyer together and thought it maybe a little earnest looking (and far too much information - I like simple design). Maybe all I needed was a photo of a child riding through a puddle, feet in the air, grin on face.
Maybe all I needed was a photo of a child riding through a puddle, feet in the air, grin on face.
Actually, does anyone here have such a photo I might be able to use?
Somewhere. The one I used was just a lad out riding round Derwent on a mtb with a helmet on in shit weather. No cotton wool, adaptive bike etc etc basically look where we can even the most severe!
skids are cool. chicks love wheelies.