As a child, I used to project that by then, we would commute through the air between skyscrapers. I'm a child of the late 1990s, afterall. I thought nothing of these metropolises that swallow everything, man-made water reservoirs, forests or putrid subways. I knew about corded phones and colorful, round cars. I didn't think the ultimate luxury would be an hour of silence. I saw in this quarter of the 21st century (which seemed so far away) the sign of a planet populated by progress, with its speed and vertical smoothness. A future of those who can only get along with futuristic sounds of bip-boops and fiou, like those of a shifting electronic groupset. And in many ways, when I pass a last-mile delivery robot on the streets of Los Angeles or Brussels, when a rocket reaches space and stows away on its launch silo, I tell myself that this future has been partially realized. It only takes a few hub rotations for our dynamo lamps to light up an entire road self-sufficiently, our tubeless tires seal themselves after cuts, our smartphones know how to find us and guide us, they scan the sky and offer us colorful maps of clouds or rainfall.
Previously unimaginable data is now available at the touch of a thumb: a route with point-of-interest and reference times, power readings taken while pedaling, photographs that can be easily caught while riding, music that can be scrolled through with the touch of a finger on the shifter hood and listened to through bone-conducting headphones... The flood of innovations we are experiencing is staggering. Too much, perhaps, at times. And if there's one thing that remains unchanged, simple and happy, it's the joy of getting on your bike and going for a ride.
From a technological point of view, bikes are surprisingly stable. Yes, of course, some revolutionary technologies that I'm not unaware of are constantly changing our relationship with the gear. But fundamentally, the steel bicycle designed by craftsmen fifty years ago has not undergone a radical change, either in its geometry or in its approach to the world and freedom. It has become lighter, it has changed standards, it has returned to other industry standards — yet it still does the same thing. From point A to point B, without disturbing the planet, it increases mankind’s speed tenfold, no longer reducing it to a few kilometers an hour, and enables human beings to benefit from their marvelous capacity for endurance. It's a machine for traversing the earth, a dream machine, a companion for reaching for the best. A machine both humble and splendid.
