Cycling Meditations: Pegasus the Wonder Bike

This weblog would be a little wanting if I didn't at least dedicate an entry to Pegasus the wonder bike, my trusty blue and yellow Cannondale which has stood by my side since I inherited it from my brother some 12 years ago. My brother had bought it several years before that, some time around 1998, which would put it at about 16 years old, which for a bicycle, some might say, is pretty old. I simply say that she is as young as the day she came out that handmade workshop. If you look after anything well enough, show it enough love and attention, time (as far as decay is concerned) struggles to gain a foothold, and this has been the case with Pegasus. I look after her, and she looks after me!

At around 7kg in weight, and made of aluminium, Pegasus appears to be a fitting name. That and the fact that Rabbie Burns used to have a horse called Pegasus. Poetry comes to those who move through the world and let the world move through them.

So, here's to Pegasus, and to me (!), for we are a unit only together. Indeed, as a symbiosis, perhaps the bicycle can educate us as to the hidden connections that we are involved in yet do not see, and render us (an energy-profligate nation) more energy and eco-literate.

I am convinced from my relationship with Pegasus that if everyone cycled their way from place to place instead of driving, the world as a whole would be in a much better shape.