Tall Bike Love

I’ve been riding the tall bike farther and farther afield; today, I took it all the way to 2020 Cycle, a distance of about a mile and a half. It’s not so much how far you go—although it’s not a bike I’d take on a century—it’s more about how many people you pass and how much traffic you confront, because almost everyone who sees it does a double-take and people in cars can’t help turning their heads from the road. I even caused a guy to stall his Toyota as he popped the clutch at a light when he swiveled around to catch me roll by; the thing is, though, he wasn’t, as far as I could tell, the least bit annoyed by what happened; like nearly everyone who spies the Deathtrap II, he smiled and laughed and cracked up at the sheer audacious absurdity of it all.

Of course, I do experience that mixture of “hey watch me, watch me” and “what the hell are you looking at?” that Jen said you get from people at Burning Man; I love the attention the tall bike garners, but it’s also sort of weird to be stared at. Still, most of the eyeballing is with admiration, or at least, bemusement, so, in general, I appreciate it.

I think what I like best is that folks who typically wouldn’t give a second glance at a bike—baggy pants teenagers, an old lady pushing a shopping car, some guy in a convertible Mercedes—are among those who seem most entranced when the Deathtrap II passes by. I’d like to think that I’m planting a little seed of bike love their minds; who knows but that it won’t blossom, maybe when the weather warms up next spring.

I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with the mounting and dismounting; a couple times people walking by asked me to show them how you get on and off the bike; so far, I haven’t fallen when demonstrating.