David Wyman

The woods spin by faster than the spokes on the wheels of a bicycle, even a bicycle such as the one upon which the rider is perched.  The rocks rise up but are leapt over and ridden around as their quarry stays as distant as the branches far overhead.  There is nothing this rider will not overcome.  The roots, rocks and pitfalls of a forest path are absorbed throughout bike and body as though one were part of the other.  What disturbances the elegant suspension allows through its shifting springs, the legs ride as a surfer rides a wave.  The leaves rustle all around the surging body of metal and flesh, only watching in frightened awe as they would a tornado.

A tall, lean boy of nearly 16 years sits astride the tumbling aluminum and rubber.  He has black hair, sunken eyes, a prominent nose and a confident expression upon his face.  The ease with which he moves is so sure that it is obvious it is not merely the pleasure of his current activity that gives confidence to his features.  He sits not only upon a bicycle, but also upon the throne of his world, above all he contacts.  He has no need of the world he encounters once he has eliminated the fundamental worry of how that world will influence him.

The rider has no fear, for the rider is immortal.  A being as powerful as to remove a rider from the height of his glory at this moment is too terrible to imagine.  The elements are welcomed, for they do nothing to diminish comfort and only to heighten the defiance against nature as it brings all its force to bear upon a single adventuresome soul.

Even a fall will do nothing to humble this being of might.  To laugh away the blood is only one more way to scorn nature’s fury.  The pace would halt for a single moment, and the trees would gather round, leaning in to see the toppling of one so great, but such a toppling would be forever overcome.  A land as wild as the one lying at the rider’s feet requires only an extreme strength of character for one to attain the triumphant feats achieved solely by the gifted and the genius back in civilized lands.  This strength of character, and a hand pump, will win back the grace of whatever reasoning decides the flow of fate.

And soon the wheels are free to once again race and jounce, as their teeth sink into the luscious fruit of new discovery.  The rider is free to once again ride the metal, mounted as a knight upon his charger, blazing forth in the glory akin to sunlight flashing off a suit of steel.  He is astride the equipment that brings all lying within the terrestrial domain once again within his leisurely grasp.