There’s a new bike in town. A couple of times a week a low-slung, electric-blue ‘bent whizzes past my office window. If the rider’s headed up the hill, I’ll usually be alerted to his passage by the muted clack of his rear mech as he gets ready for the climb, but if he’s coasting downhill, all I’ll hear is the buzz of his tires on the crumbling asphalt. Uphill or down, though, he moves fast—so fast that I can’t catch the maker’s name on his machine.

This is his second bent. Earlier in the year he had a long-wheelbase machine with chromed fenders. I managed to get a photo of that one—though it was pure luck that I did. I was stalking a bird with my camera at the ready when ‘bent and rider breezed past.

His new ‘bent is a short-wheelbase machine, and while the rider’s butt doesn’t look to be more than a foot above the ground, his feet are almost as high as his shoulders. I wonder how much of the road he sees. In any case, it’s obvious that the strain of holding his head up is taking its toll. He’s recently rigged an improvised neckbrace.

I doubt that he’s flying blind, of course. But I do know that it’s hard to see him. Now and then our paths cross on the highway. I was returning from town recently, huffing and puffing my way up a long hill with loaded panniers, when I saw a shadowy form on the opposite side of the road. It was headed downslope, moving at speed, but I wasn’t able to identify it as the ‘bent rider until less than a 100 yards separated us. The ‘bent’s low silhouette and the rider’s dull red jersey proved very effective camouflage. Only an occasional flash from the pedals gave the game away. How overtaking motorists manage to pick him out when he’s in one of the frequent pools of shadow cast by roadside trees I simply can’t imagine. A quick glimpse in my rearview mirror after he’d passed wasn’t reassuring. He was even harder to spot going away than he’d been coming toward me.

Cyclists—all cyclists, whatever machines they favor—are operating at a disadvantage on busy roads. And while I never assume that motorists are actually paying attention to what’s in front of them, I do everything I can to make myself hard to miss. Er…make that “hard to hit.” Fluorescent jersey and jacket, blinkies fore and aft, even a slow-moving-vehicle safety triangle—I’ve got ‘em all. Plus I’m sitting tall in the saddle. A lot taller than someone on a ‘bent. Not for me the role of invisible rider, thanks. How about you?

 
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