The bicycle as a learning machine

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The bicycle as a learning machine

July 5, 2005

What do Lance Armstrong, Dan Burden, John Eldon and Albert Einstein have in common?

All would agree with Burden's description of the bicycle as "the learning machine." Armstrong, of course, is racing for the Champs-Elysees crown on July 24; Burden is director of Walkable Communities, a Florida-based national organization; Eldon is a digital design engineer in Carlsbad; and Albert Einstein is the guy who came up with the Theory of Relativity – while riding his bike.

"As a child, I suffered from excess weight, severely impaired physical coordination, scoliosis, myopia and shyness," recalls fifty-something Burden. His physical and mental condition began to change, however, when he bought an old balloon-tired Schwinn 2-speed middleweight from a friend for $15. The bike's extended range, he says, "broadened my mind, introduced me to people and took me many places, deep into the Ohio countryside."

The learning machine transported him "to distant places never seen by car, foot or any other means."

It allowed him to learn "the precision skills of well-directed, underhanded tosses of fast-folded papers (while riding no handed) to exact, center porch landings, how to collect money from deadbeat or busy customers, how to accept semi-threatening but friendly teasing of customers in a very different neighborhood than where I lived, such as a beer-drinking cop sitting on his front porch who called my dad (a firefighter) a 'nozzle squeezer.' "

(snip)

Louv's column appears on Tuesdays. He can be reached via e-mail at [e-mail] or at www.thefuturesedge.com.


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050705/news_mz1e5louv.html

[Fovea]

1. Thanks

Good post