It is early morning, around eight o’ clock. The bicyclist begins his preparations. The shorts are first; Lycra. The black nylon strands reflect the ambient morning light in a criss-cross circle as they are pulled into place, slack at first, but then perfectly following the little contours around the calf muscles; a second-skin. Next; the top, a thin white vest under a tight jacket. This too wraps around the body, but not as tightly, reserving still some slack in its plastic threads. The zip tightens it considerably, running up its little tracks, making a slight click-clicking noise at it runs over each little tooth.

Shoes: These are hard plastic. The bicyclist pulls them over the white sports socks he wears, pushing the toes to the ends of the shoes, and then tightening the straps over the bridge of his foot. They too are tight; aerodynamic, and strengthening, protecting, of the feet within. Then comes the helmet. This too is hard, but more rigid; a thin sheet of coloured plastic over a ventilated polystyrene base. When he puts it on, it covers the whole of the top of his head; additional armour for the natural defences of his skull. It is secured with a black nylon strap across the jaw, pulling tight against the bone to keep secure.

Finally the gloves. These are soft and flexible around the joints, but reinforced over the contact-points with leather and tough plastics. He pulled them onto his hands and the fingers jutted suddenly out from them; the pink flesh a contrast to the dark plastic and leather, but somehow fitting there too; the clean nails, the calloused pads almost perfectly congruent with the smooth dull plastic, the worn leather.

He flexes the fingers a couple of times, checking the motor functions, the tight responsiveness, the way the gloves tighten against the knuckles as the tendons curled his fingers round, and then slackened again as he released the tension. He was ready, equipped and armoured, save for a few stretches to warm up the muscles.

The first of these brings the hands as far apart as they would reach and then back together again, then down right to the floor and then back up again. A slight burn carried from these along the arms, across the torso, up the neck and then to the brain. The calf muscles too are stretched, first one and then the other, pulled tight almost to the point where seemingly the thick tendons, the muscle tissue, might snap and tear, and then held like this for a few seconds before they were allowed to relax.

The Bicyclist was now ready.

II

Skin met rubber as the fingers closed confidently around the handle-bar grips, the minutely ridged surface seeming almost to merge with the blocky dark rubber. Two of the fingers, the middle and index, remain detached though from the rubber and instead came to rest on metal, cold and shiny. These curl round the metal and for a few seconds are tightened, pulling back the lever, which in turn makes taught a thin cord which then closes two rubber blocks on the hard streaked metal of the wheel rims. Certainly the machine would stop when it had to, with these safety measures in place to regulate speed, to stop at the first instance of necessity.

Final safety checks complete, the machine was ready to begin. The supports, the legs, are lifted and the machine glides into motion. At first slowly, the machine becomes faster as the wheels spin and the complex balancing mechanisms take over. Where previously three points of contact had held this machine erect, now there were only two, and these constantly moved, constantly touched new ground.

These were the wheels, inflated to the point that just a few square centimetres were in contact with the hard surface beneath at any one time. These in turn support an aluminium frame from their continually rotating axles, which then lead to a light-weight seat post. The terminus of this seat post supports, through a layer of Lycra and taught flesh, the pelvis of the human component. From the pelvis ran the spine, connecting to the rib-cage, the shoulder bones, and holding the arms in place. These arms run back down to the hands, which never loosen their grip around the rubber and aluminium handle-bars. These are at the zenith of a pivoting fork which attaches back to the frame before running down to the front wheel.

To anything at ground level, this is a mighty behemoth, the wheels merely clicking as they caused tiny pebbles and flecks of dirt to skitter out from under their ceaseless rotation on their almost frictionless axles.

For itself though, the machine makes little noise, the crankshaft, the wheels, the chain, all moving smoothly and silently along their determined paths and above them all the muscles and bones running together smoothly in rhythmic motions. Only the throat and lungs add to the friction sounds of the wheels running over the dirty concrete beneath: a regular inhale/exhale was perpetuated in time to the rotation of the pedals.

Beyond the visible though, both on a small and larger scale, far more is happening, some of which revealed itself in the motions of the machine: there is the interplay between the sockets and muscles as they bend in their circular motion and there are the knees, which follow this movement higher up, expanding and contracting, alternating the angle between the shins and thighs from obtuse to acute and back again, always with the position of the other leg opposing that of the first.

Further up the body, below the main core, sit other internal machines: kidneys, intestines, a stomach. These lay mostly in a dormant state at the moment, the digestive processes halted in order to conserve energy for the muscles, but all are part of the whole nonetheless.

The core is the most active of all as it harbours the lungs and the heart, both of which beat and pulse continually. These each serve the overall processes: the heart supplying the body with blood, a liquid as essential to the smooth running of the human components as the oil and lubricants were to the smooth running of the mechanical components. This was supplied in an oxygenated form to the muscles via the lungs, which expand and contract, opening a hundred bundled alveoli with each expansion to mix oxygen with the fast flowing liquid, and then closing them again to expel the carbon dioxide extracted from the blood after the metabolic processes of the muscles.

The muscles themselves all are taught and clumped around the bones in bulky masses that rippled and wavered under the skin, standing for seconds at a time as hard as stone, then moving fluidly as if they were merely made of water. Despite the stresses this caused, the skin stretched over these masses is well prepared to cope and, even as the muscles began to expend more and more heat, is ready to respond with its own coping measures: A thin and constantly renewing layer of salty sweat is released to evaporate and radiate heat.

All these elements of the machine are working now in perfect harmony, and the bicyclist is now reaching his peak, each movement and system regulated constantly by the single-focusing brain which makes each second hundreds of small adjustments to supply muscles with enough oxygen, to keep the heart pumping blood and the lungs supplying the blood, and then the complex task of the minor corrections, the minuscule shifts in balance that kept the machine upright, even as it is turned and manoeuvred over the concrete.

The bicyclist has become in this moment the embodiment of kinetic energy, a microcosm of perpetual energy that balances on a thin line between harmony and discord.

III

That balance is easily tipped. It would have taken something only minor to upset the perfect motions, the harmony of movement, but it is something monumental that breaks these regulated movements: another machine, larger and less well tuned. This machine is dirty and bulky, crawling along the concrete like some grotesque beetle.

It collides with the bicyclist and, like clock-work hit with a hammer, the microcosm of perpetuation is shattered, the bicycle crumpled and smashed, with parts sent skittering and bouncing pebble-like over the concrete. The rider too is thrown across the concrete, but tears and catches, rather than coming apart like the bicycle. Still, the mechanisms of his body are irreparably damaged: The essential blood that has been drawn out from between skin and muscles, has trickled out between tendons and bones; and the bones, that held in place the essential organs, the heart, the lungs, broken too. Even the outer layers are torn, the protection and reinforcement that had been of little use now clings tattered to the damp flesh.

The machine is broken and, despite all the maintenance, the years of perfecting the design, testing it, running it, expanding and enhancing it, a single collision had shattered it permanently. All the processes, the delicate harmony that had been established between them, had been destroyed in an instant, blown apart to the point of unsalvagability, and lay now scattered, nothing more than broken components across a dirty concrete round.

Cars? It’s easy to move them, once you’ve learned how, but you’re never really connected to them, you always have to counter-intuitively move your feet or your arms to control them: you can never just lean and go with the flow.

There’s walking. That comes close: certainly, it is simple. But it’s just not so easy you always have to lift up each foot individually and put it in front of the other, unlike in cycling where the downward movement of one foot aids the upwards movement of the other.

There’s skateboarding, with its leaning, but that’s hampered by the difficulty of staying on the bloody thing. Then there’s things I haven’t tried, like skiing, snowboarding, surfing, that sort of thing. Now, while I can’t vouch for the ease of these things, I can’t imagine any being as intuitive and natural as cycling (except perhaps kayaking, I imagine that’s a lot to do with leaning and going with the flow), so, what I’m saying is, as far as I’m concerned, cycling is the most enjoyable mode of transport.

It is also, I’ve been lead to believe, the most energy efficient, burning less calories (and no petroleum) than walking over any distance.