介绍:
The Bicycle Boy actually has a long literary-social tradition in
New York. The patron saints of Bicycle Boys are white-haired
writer George Plimpton, whose bike used to hang upside down
above his employees' heads at the Paris Review offices, and white-
haired Newsday columnist Murray Kempton. They've been riding for
years and are the inspiration for the next generation of Bicycle
Boys, like the aforementioned Mr. New Yorker and scores of young
book, magazine, and newspaper editors and writers who insist on
traversing Manhattan's physical and romantic landscape as solitary
pedalers. Bicycle Boys are a particular breed of New York bachelor:
Smart, funny, romantic, lean, quite attractive, they are the stuff that
grownup coed dreams are made of. There's something incredibly, er,
charming about a tweedy guy on a bikeespecially if he's wearing
goofy glasses.
Women tend to feel a mixture of passion and motherly affection.
But there's a dark side: Most Bicycle Boys are not married and
probably never will be, at least not until they give up their bikes.
WHY JOHN F. KENNEDY JR.
IS NOT A BICYCLE BOY
"Riding a bike is not necessarily a power move," said Mr. Eccles.
"It's best done by power people like George Plimpton. Otherwise,
you have to hide your bike around the corner and surreptitiously
take your trousers out of your socks." Bicycle Boys don't ride their
bikes for sport, like those silly guys you see riding around and
around the park. They ride partly for transportation and, more
important, to preserve a literary boyhood. Think of twilight at
Oxford, riding over the cobblestones while a woman waits down by
the Cherwell River, wearing a flowing dress, clasping a volume of
Yeats. That's how Bicycle Boys think of themselves as they pedal
Manhattan, dodging cabbies and potholes. While John F. Kennedy
Jr. is certainly New York's most famous and sought-after bike-riding
bachelor, his rippled athleticism disqualifies him for Bicycle
Boydom. Because a Bicycle Boy would rather bike through
midtown in a seersucker suit than in shorts and a chest-hugging tee.
And Bicycle Boys spurn those skintight bike pants that have cushy
foam padding sewn into the butt. Bicycle Boys are not averse to the
chastising pain of a hard bike seatit helps the literature. "I don't
own any spandex pants," said Mr. New Yorker, who added that he
wears long Johns in the winter to keep warm.
Which may be one reason Bicycle Boys, more than their athletic
cousins, tend to get physically attacked. The other reason is that
they ride at any hour (the later the better more romantic), in any
physical condition, anywhere.
"Drunks roar out of their windows at night to send you into a
tailspin," said Mr. Eccles. And worse.
One Halloween, Mr. New Yorker was wearing a British bobby's
cape when he rode into a group of twelve year olds who yanked him
off his bike. "I said, 'I can't fight all of you at once. I'll fight one of
you.' They all stepped back, except for the biggest one. I suddenly
realized I didn't want to fight him, either." The whole gang jumped
on Mr. New Yorker and began pounding him, until some innocent
bystanders started screaming and the gang ran away. "I was lucky,"
said Mr. New Yorker. "They didn't take my bike, but they did take
some records I had in my basket." (Note that Mr. New Yorker was
carrying "records," as in vinyl albums, not CDs another sign of a
true Bicycle Boy.)
Mr. Eccles recalled a similar story. "Two days ago, I was riding
through Central Park at ten at night, when I was surrounded by a
'wilding' gang on rollerblades. "They were almost children. They
tried to capture me in a flank maneuver, but I was able to bicycle
away even faster."
But an even bigger danger is sex, as a reporter we'll call Chester
found out. Chester doesn't ride his bike as much as he used to
because, about a year ago, he had a bad cycling accident after a
romantic interlude. He was writing a story on topless dancers when
he struck up a friendship with Lola. Maybe Lola fancied herself a
Marilyn Monroe to his Arthur Miller. Who knows. All Chester
knows is that one evening she called him up and said she was lying
around in her bed at Trump Palace, and could he come over. He
hopped on his bike and was there in fifteen minutes. They went at it
for three hours. Then she said he had to leave because she lived with
someone and the guy was coming home. Any minute.
Chester ran out of the building and jumped on his bike, but there
was a problem. His legs were so shaky from having sex they started
cramping up just as he was going down Murray Hill, and he crashed
over the curb and slid across the pavement. "It really hurt," he said.
"When your skin is scraped off like that, it's like a first-degree
burn." Luckily, his nipple did eventually grow back.
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