Fixedgeargallery...of disembodied hands.

While swinging through Fixedgeargallery this morning I was arrested by this entry. No, it had nothing to do with the untenability of the brakeless/platform pedal setup. We're all used to this by now, for better or for worse. (Adherents to this particular combo swear by the "Jamaican skid," though I'd think you'd be more likely to wind up doing a "Texan dismount" when you're thrown from the bike like a cowboy from a bronco, and then waking up in the hospital and executing a full "Regarding Henry.") What really made my heart skip a beat was the mysterious hand present in every shot.

Just who is at the end of that appendage? Maybe you can tell yourself it's just a guy with really banged-up shins, but I can't. The first thing I thought of were those creepy two-handed tambourine-wielding arms in the old Escape Club video. (For those of you who don't remember or were lucky enough not to have been around, this band was produced in a lab in the late 80s to serve as a replacement for INXS should their tour bus ever crash.) Then I calmed myself by thinking maybe it's just a regular guy, his best gal in one hand, his Pista's rim in the other:

The bike's picturesque placement also suggests that it could be part of a new London monument to fixed-gear freestylers.

Or is something more celestial at work here? Has this bike been placed here by God himself?



Or is the bike God, and are we the collective Adam, grasping its wheel so that we may be transported heavenward when it finally ascends?

Does it forego foot-retention of any kind to atone for all our sins?

Or could it belong to an aging Pete Townshend?

Of course, I could just read the guy's entry, but I'm not one for facile explanations.