Bicycle Writer

December 20, 2008

I’m so in love with William Saroyan‘s memoir The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills. It was given to me by a fellow teacher, a Saroyan scholar, at one of the schools where I teach.

I haven’t read it all, but I visit the book every so often–it sits on the nightstand next to my bed, with the others i’m reading or will soon read. Each time I open the book again I’m entranced.

Here, he describes his bike (he rode his bike in Fresno, Oakland, SF, and Beverly Hills, delivering telegrams and newspapers) and how bike riding is connected to writing:

Before I was sixteen I had many bicycles. I have no idea what became of them. I remember, though, that I rode them so hard they were always breaking down. The spokes of the wheels were always getting loose so that the wheels became crooked. The chains were always breaking. I bore down on the handlebars with so much force in sprinting, in speeding, in making quick getaways, that the handlebars were always getting loose and I was always tightening them. But thie thing about my bicycles that I want to remember is the way I rode them, what I thought while I rode them, and the music that came to me.

[...]

A man learns style from everything, but I learned mine from things on which I moved, and as writing is a thing which moves I think I was lucky to learn as I did.

A bike can be an important appurtenance of an important ritual. Moving the legs evenly and steadily soon brings home to the bike-rider a valuable knowledge of pace and rhythm, and a sensible respect for timing and the meeting of a schedule.

Out of rhythm come many things, perhaps all things. The physical action compels action of another ordr–action of mind, memory, imagination, dream, hope, order, and so on. The physical action also establishes a deep respect for grace, seemliness, effectiveness, power with ease, naturalness, and so on. The action of the imagination brings home to the bicycle-rider the limitlessness of the potential in all things.

Brilliant.

And speaking of bicycles, I recently bought this belt, made of a recycled bike tire/innertube, from Etsy shop Superflot. Superflot is located in Brooklyn (yeah!) and they make the coolest stuff.

Here’s a description of the belts:

These punky belts are upcycled from discarded bike inner tubes. The rubber tubes are super-sturdy and have a nice amount of stretch for a comfy, secure fit. Buckles are an antique silver color. The tubes start off with a whitish cast and turn shiny and black with use; some come with text or numbers printed on them, so each belt is unique.

I love mine. It’s fun, and looks great. They cost less than $20. Each one is custom made and sized and each has its own characteristics– discolorations, the text or numbers that she notes above. Mine even has some rust color on it, which probably came from the metal inside of the tire. She’s down to her last few products, but I bet if you emailed her and said how much you loved the belt that Rob Williams bought she’d make some more.