anthropomorphize this

September 5, 2007

Hooray! Fixed cotters
my bike is more responsive
like a new boyfriend

It’s funny, scul refers to bikes as ships, and they all have names and possibly personalities. I think of all the ships I ride as boys, maybe because they’re all men’s frames, but they’re reliable and quirky like any good friend I like to go drinking with.

Funny, I’m more guilty of anthropomorphizing machines than animals. In some ways it’s like a memory device when I switch bikes all the time. Sometimes it’s more of a conversation, like Schadenfreude (the bike i rode for the century). The ship handles beautifully if you’re willing to have a conversation, if you’re willing to compromise. Essentially, I promise to move at a decent clip, I let the bike bite back when I make overly ambitious steering adjustments, and the bike lets me come along for the ride.

Devastation is… well we’ll just say if that bike were a person, he’d be my soul mate. I don’t even know why it works so well, but there you go.

As for my personal bike - my now repaired Raleigh with the cludgy derailleur? I think he complains that I don’t ride faster, and he’s a bit aggravated about being a cargo carrier.

It seems silly to talk about anthropomorphism and not talk about the bunnies I draw all over the place. I think of them more like stuffed animals, like this super expressive Gund bunny puppet I have in my room. He’s the awesomest bunny ever.

I’m rolling my eyes now. How old am I?

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