Thursday, November 19, 2009

Objet Trouvé

Seen in Houston.

I swear to God that I didn't touch the thing; it was just right where I found it.

I have to admit, it's a little hard to imagine the circumstance that would allow a cyclist to just leave his left crank-arm and pedal sitting out there near the curb like this. I mean, clearly there was a missing crankarm-fixing-bolt, and I suppose that it's possible to lose one of those, (although I've never done it personally,) but how does this happen and you don't just reach down and retrieve the thing?

What's the most likely? Was it:
  1. the cyclist was walking his bike and didn't notice;
  2. the cyclist was walking his bike and too drunk to notice;
  3. the cyclist had his bike on the back of his car;
  4. the cyclist was riding and he and every bit of his bike except the left crankarm and pedal was hit big-time by an alien abduction ray;
When you figure it out, let me know.

8 comments:

Donald said...

I'm pretty sure alien abduction makes the most sense. =)

Either that or an action movie chase scene where he couldn't afford to stop lest the terrorist baddies catch him.

Unknown said...

Where'd you see it?

I finally got a bike! I got an old seventies ten speed cruiser from a friend's mom. Her name is Brittany. The bike, not the mom. Fiesta, here I come…with a backpack!

Robert Anderson said...

Hey, Ann, good to hear you're a-bike! (My bike doesn't have a name, but I think of it as "Steed.") Claire and I saw the pedal / arm about a half-block from her apartment, walking on our way to ...Fiesta, to pick up dinner fixings.

Ron George said...

The cyclist was riding and he and every bit of his bike except the left crankarm and pedal was hit big-time by an alien abduction ray.

If we can agree the RAY is in the electromagnetic spectrum, it'd probably be reported by SETI radio telescopes by now. I haven't heard of any :)

By and large to me, this looks like the work of some kids, who were trashing bike parts and fooling around on the streets and one decided to just leave the pedal and crank bit on the ground.

Unknown said...

I did talk to the guys at my local bike shop, and they said that they had a Rice guy come in with a bike that only had one crank arm. Supposedly lost it somewhere in the Rice/Southhampton area. The bike guys said something to the effect of "Rice people: smart enough to work at NASA, but stupid enough to not realize you can reattach parts that fall off bicycles."

As a Rice grad myself, I was forced to concur.

Kevin G. said...

Had a left crank arm fall off of my old Schwinn down by the old Strait Music location in downtown Austin circa 1992. I retrieved the arm (bolt was missing), but the square taper had egged out (over the unknown distance between when the bolt fell out [likely jumping down stairs on campus] and when the arm finally dropped), so I ended up with a new crank arm anyhow... I did, however, reuse the pedal (and clip) up until I sold the bike years later with a black arm with the 'rings and a chrome lefty...

Luigi Bartolomeo said...

'Nice to find you again, RFA.

Luigi

Luigi Bartolomeo said...

'Nice to find you again, RFA.

Luigi