This Bike is a Saw
After reading this on Twitter
Cable was sawing through a beetle, slowly with each shift. Went up and down the cassette twice to complete the task. Shifting normal again.
Sal Ruibal replied
That reads like a Kafka haiku.
And wrote…
I did not notice the beetle’s presence upon my machine’s slope. I first heard its moan like the wisp of steam above a cup of tea.
When the road turned downward and I pushed the silver lever so, waiting for the sound of the moving chain being lifted onto the larger circle of teeth, the moan became a groan, so light as to be a fairy’s pique over some silly meadow game.
As machine and man soared down the slope I took my eyes from the road to discern an unusual sight, a shiny black beetle trapped between the control wire and the frame, a thin silver cord pressed hard against its iridescent shell.
A simple flick could end this game, but something of the beast inside me was stirred, a test of my morality, my generosity, my monstrosity.
Another click and the wire sawed again across the insect, a pinhead drop of fluid formed beneath its translucent wing. “What is it feeling?,” I asked, but the real query was “What am I feeling?”
What am I to this anonymous creature? Am I a God or a dream?
Down, down we went and I again touched the lever. Slowly, slowly to extend the moment, the surge of pressure so slight for a man but an avalanche of razors for the trapped insect whose wound exposed a molecular pearl of the most beautiful azure, a sea within now exposed.
Time compressed, an hour into a minute as we shared this embrace from different sides of the universe.
Suddenly, the road turned sharply left and I was floating above a field of sharpened boulders. With a final glance I pushed the lever again and the beetle came apart.
Venge BB
I was on the S-Works Venge. It’s an aero road bike with a bulbous bottom bracket.
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