Cycling By The Sea

Cycling by the Sea M. A. June 1996

pathy for them, because they terrorised my grandmother, who complained for both the mice and the bicycles, which obstructed her access to the wine, and occasionally torn a hole in her dress. It must be mentioned that the terrain of our home island does not justify the existence of a bicycle collection. It is full of hills and mountains. The most level road goes around the island keeping close to the seashore for the most of its part. However the western area of the island is mountainous, and rarely inhabited. Being so it seems to have created a puzzle in the mind of the civil engineer, who designed the road, as an uninhabited area gives him free space for action, perhaps more than he expected. The usual trick is how to cut a new road through a cultivated area. Every landowner would be happy to put the engineer's head at gunpoint if he suspected that the road would take a part of his beloved land. On the other hand, he expects the road to be close enough, so as to easily transport and sell his products, usually grapes and olives. Then a time consuming negotiation comes between landowners, public assistants of the ministry of transport, and the head of the local community. The engineer prepares an initial design, which takes into account the nature of the terrain, and the princi-

My grandfather was the happy owner of thirty-two bicycles, which were kept in the dark cellar of his house, together with the wine. They were standing side by side, like a phalanx, a sleeping phalanx maybe, as they were incapable of hurting anybody, at least inside the cellar. Outside, they were pretty dangerous, as my grandmother used to say to grandpa. In fact they were quite vulnerable in that dark room, which might have been benecial to two out of the three coexisting groups, namely the wine barrels, the bicycles, and the mice, but not to all three. The mice would sometimes eat the rubber parts of the bicycles, and this was a quite unhealthy attitude for them, since my grandfather would then get very angry, and would poison some of them, so that the rest would see and learn what they ought not to do. Otherwise he usually expressed sym1

ples of road construction, which of course is a purely scientic process and a part of civil engineering. The purpose of this basic step is mainly psychotherapeutic. The engineer would feel unworthy if he had spent all his time in the university just for nothing. Then the local representative to the parliament on a suitable occasion announces the construction of a new road, as one of his great achievements. Next morning some landowners visit the capital of the island and get a copy of the plan. After one year's battles the nal shape of the road bears no resemblance whatsoever to the original one. Thank God, today we are European citizens, we are civilised, farms and farmers become less and less, and these things happen no more. Now we try to correct the mistakes of our foul past. Since the road is full of curves, we improve it gradually. Each year a small number of curves is replaced by an almost straight line, which cuts through hills and farms. In this way there is enough E.U.-funded work to be done until year 2050. Fortunately for mountain bike fans, the old part of the road is destroyed before the new one is covered by asphalt. In this way, every year there is a rough part in the island's road network. Moreover, as I mentioned before, the western part of the network was completely left to the romantic intentions of the designer, who probably got bored of the sea and wanted to spend some time on the mountains as well. Let me insert one more small story before coming back to bicycles, in order to explain how benecial to our village the E.U. has been. The sea is its main friend and enemy. The sea makes it beautiful, the sea provides it with sh, however once or twice a year huge waves hit the rst row of houses, which 2

are close to the waterfront. A suitable E.C. project was soon proposed and accepted by both villagers and commissioners. A small harbour for shing boats and a wide road in front of the houses would protect them from the big splashes of some waves that were more friendly than necessary. First things rst, and safety is among them and comes before beauty. A line of huge blocks made of iron enforced cement were placed along the seaside. The work was done in autumn, and in summer the beach was almost totally destroyed. Maybe it was no big sacrice to walk to the next beach for the sake of the safety of the village. Another painful consequence for the elder men that play card games in the coee shops by the seaside was that they could no more see the sea while sitting and playing. The huge, over-protective blocks protected their eyes from the reections of the sunlight on the sea as well. Needless to mention that the size of the blocks is not unrelated with the total cost of the project. Then the winter came and brought together strong winds and stormy seas, although not so dangerous as before. The rst storm to appear had an unexpected consequence on the village. The waves themselves were considerably lower than the blocks, but their crests overcame the obstacles, and a steadily increasing amount of water was collected behind the barricade, as there was no way out. After a few hours it reached the level of the oors of the houses. In the next few days holes between the blocks were opened and the total project cost was again increased. Well, if the village had been left unprotected it would not have been harmed by the seas of that particular winter.

Cycling by the sea In the summer following that mild winter a oating excavator arrived by sea. Its assignment was to deepen the area of the sea, which would be enclosed by the new harbour. The depth was enough for shing boats, but not enough for a modern marina that would be capable of accepting ashy, modern, two meter deep sailboats. The works took all the summer at the exhausting rate of pulling up one or two stones per minute. The work was, of course, not completed before next winter, and the oating excavator was left inside the harbour. I am not aware of the exact events, which prevented this sophisticated piece of machinery of oating anymore. Nonetheless at the dawn of a certain day of that winter it was found half-sunk. (If it had completed its job, it have be either removed from there or completely sunk.) In that very winter, the subcontractor, who had undertaken the works, was jailed, which is a usual event for people of this profession. In summer he was still in jail and the excavator remained halfsunk. It was rather a strange piece of sculpture, maybe a symbol of the united Europe. Anyway, the sh were happier than before, as they had a labyrinth to live in and play with. For those of you who are curious to read what nally happened, I will only mention that ve years later a new project was launched and this one was completely successful. Now the village has a small harbour, a wide road along the waterfront, and it is more beautiful than ever. Now, coming back again to those bicycles, a legitimate question to ask is where did they come from. My grandmother, wife of the aforementioned grandfather, had a brother, who went to the States before the Second World War and spent there all

his life. He started with dish-washing and ended up as the very rich owner of a chain of hotels. He made regular contributions to his native village, which lies on the slopes of the nearest mountain, at a distance of half an hour's walk from our village. He oered a big clock for the church, he supported the studies of young people, and he contributed to the expenses of a new road. He was a bicycle fan himself, as he could not aord a car in the rst years of his stay in the States. His adopted son was enrolled in the cycling team of the local college, and eventually he decided to boost cycling on our island. Mountain bikes had not been invented, and he decided to oer a number of bicycles to the village, where his sister stayed, as it was built on a more level terrain. Thirty American bicycles crossed the ocean onboard a small rusty cargo ship in autumn and were locked in grandpa's cellar. The son of my grandmother's brother, in other words my uncle, who was only two years older than me, would come in summer to organise the cycling club of our village. The rst problem to be solved ( I don't see how) was that there were only about ten children in the whole village. Well, my uncle arrived, and we began working for the club. We were doing well, apart from some mishaps due to the fact that children in a village are part of its human resources, which are not to be wasted just like that. Their parents protected their managerial rights by asking for assistance in the farms at the most inappropriate moments. However my mother's uncle, that is the father of our club leader, died. His wife took over his business and my uncle took the rst plane to America. My grandfather locked the bicycles in the cellar again, as 3

an expression of mourning. All my friends' parents were happy. My uncle came back to our island only six years later. He was still not involved in his family's business, and he rather worked as a rock 'n roll singer, who could successfully imitate Elvis. His mother thought that the girls he met in his working environment were not appropriate for her son and they would not be able to support him in managing the family business in the future. She also said that he spent all his money for triing purposes and therefore she decided to get him a bride from their homeland. Next summer they both arrived and declared their purpose openly. Theoretically, one would choose a clever beautiful girl. (Money was out of the question since they had enough.) There are several hidden assumptions in such a selection process. First, one must have eyes in good condition, which was true for the son and false for his mother. Second, one must be clever enough so as to be able to estimate other people's abilities, which was true for the mother and false for the son. Third, theory is not always true, or to put it dierently, there are conicting alternative theories. One way or another the truth was that the mother wanted to nd an obedient servant in her bride and in principle it was immaterial to her whether she would be good-looking or not. Now, taking into account that there is a negative statistical correlation between a girl's beauty and her mental abilities and inspite of my uncle's mother's poor statistical background, she chose for her son the most beautiful girl of the village. They got married in a marriageof-the-century type, and left for the brave new world. 4

According to rumours the bride soon got bored of playing housemaid, and her husband asked for increased nancial support. His mother replied that he should rst learn what money is made of (the proper answer probably being a good marriage) and in order to do so she proposed him to become a heavy truck driver. To make a long story short, he refused to risk his head on the American roads and he came back to our island with his wife and baby. He found a job as an assistant carpenter in a small township. All bicycles but four remained locked in the cellar all these years. One bicycle was given to me, the second one to a cousin, and the third one was used by grandfather himself. He parked it by the waterfront, infront of cafes and taverns, so that his friends could easily locate him. A fourth one replaced the cousin's bike when it was lost. The rst two of them were destined to become famous. Let us rst deal with my cousin's bike. Once or twice in a week a portable cinema appeared in the village. The image was projected on a white tent, which was set up in front of one of the seaside coee shops. The viewers were accommodated on ve or six rows of chairs on the opposite side of the road, near the sea. Most movies were dramas, suitable for our parents and boring to us and were frequently interrupted by failures of the projector or the power generator. We attended them equipped with big white handkerchiefs, and we pretended crying with tears made of Coca Cola classic. On a given occasion, we decided to draw the attention of our parents and other people at their age, by creating a happening during the projection of a lm. We created

Cycling by the sea a group of ve, and we managed to ride my cousin's bicycle all ve, and to pass between the tent and the viewers. Afterwards, we parked the bicycle behind the chairs, on the beach, and watched the lm. It remained there forgotten, and strangely enough it was not found in the next morning. Coming now to my own bike, it was used only for short excursions. A day arrived, which was the birthday of a girl I liked. I decided to send her my wishes on a postcard, but no suitable postcard was found in the local shops. Maybe in the next village to the east I could nd better ones, but this turned to be a wrong assumption. In fact a had a better chance in the capital of the island, at a distance of 20 km from our village. I posted the card and after drinking a coee I thought it might be feasible to go back the other way round, that is to cover 60 more km. Soon after leaving the capital city of the island I got company. A strange guy, about thirty ve years old was riding a ridiculous childish bike and was going to the same direction. He was talking and talking, and I became afraid of him, but soon he got tired, and I got rid of him. The worst part was until I reached the highest point of the road near the western end of the island. I stopped at a cafe and I ordered six bottles of orange juice. Ten minutes later the servant asked me whether I was sure that the other ve persons were going to come. Without being able to speak too much I pointed at the empty bottles. I thought that he understood, but on a second thought I think that he possibly drew the conclusion that they arrived, drunk, and left during his absence. From there it was a piece of cake to drive downwards and reach the second biggest city of the island. Inside the city I

asked a policeman about the right direction to my village. He shook his head and said it was too far from there. It was only an almost level road 20 km long. The whole tour lasted six hours. My parents did notice my absence and did not believe my story. Two days later a friend of my father's told him to his surprise that he had seen me on the other side of the island. So much of this great achievement, that was repeated every summer ever since, until I nished my university studies. Last time I was there I visited an area of leather factories ruined by the sea. Inside one of them lied the rusty skeleton of the bike of my cousin. Probably it had been left too close to the sea.

This short story was written as content for the experimental web pages of an EU funded project. The nal text was presented in a project meeting in Plymouty (July 23, 1996). The story is partly ctional; both grandfathers of mine had died long before I was born.

5