Pedaling towards revolution.
We, as Americans, have failed to sufficiently appreciate and venerate the humble bicycle, which is why we all drive Hummers and 2012 is bearing down on us with global wrath. Or so I've been told. My point is that American cinema associates bicycles with bad people (think Mrs. Gulch a.k.a. The Wicked Witch of the West and her bicycle) or the poor and silly (like Jason Schwartzman's Albert Markovski in "I Heart Huckabees," pedaling his way through his daily futility). Indeed, aside from the French -- where it's just what the cool kids do -- global bicycling is symbolic of dire poverty. (Think "The Bicycle Thief" or Mohsen Makhmalbaf's "The Cyclist," about a man who agrees to ride a bicycle in a circle for a week to get the money for his wife's medical bills.) But why should this be? We live in a glorious new age of bicycling! It...
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