Art for Art's sake - Day 8

Odo  221

The little bike that couldn't. Couldn't go anywhere without drawing a crowd. I went to buy a new helmet today. New bike deserves a new helmet. I looked inside my dirt helmet and it is 10 years old. I'm afraid to look inside my road helmet. They say 5 years is the maximum, so 10 has to be good value. I found one that fits and it's the same colour as the bike. Now I match. It's the first time in 30 years of motorcycling that any of my gear has matched any other part of my gear. Other than when I just wore all black of course, but I didn't wear all black out of any sense of fashion. It just didn't show the oil stains.

So a simple trip to buy a helmet, it's only 15 km return shouldn't take long. I found the helmet I wanted in my size straight away... 2 hours... 2 hours to go 15 km. Everyone in the shop from the owner to the apprentice came out to look, to touch and to ask questions. Even the guy from Snapon downed tools and wanted to know all about it.

I while I was riding I got a call from the magazine guy who wants to do an article on the Zero. (I could hear my mobile ringing while I rode along, how cool is that?)  He's taken ill and can't make it this week. So I thought I'd do some static shots of the bike, just to see what I could get. I nearly rode out and took some shots in front of a substation. You know, electricity, get it... I took a couple in front of a Nature Reserve sign. Making the link between nature and zero emissions. That was just as hokey.

Then I went home and thought about it while the clouds gathered just over my town to make it impossible for me to get any sunny outdoor photos.

So I took it indoors. Put it in the loungeroom. Why not? It doesn't smell, doesn't drip oil or fluids. No worse for the carpet than someone walking over it. I even parked it on the good rug (which matched the red black and white colours).

Suddenly I realised. This is a bike that fits *into* your life rather than you fitting your life around it. You don't need a garage. You don't need a house. It will go up in the lift just like a mountainbike. It even looks good on the polished floor next to the dining table. It's like a mobile phone. Just plug in where ever you happen to be. Take it with you when you go places. Seinfeld had a bicycle on the wall of his apartment for the whole series. He never rode it. He didn't have to, it was something that added to his apartment rather than subtracted from it. The Zero is the same. Even if I never rode it again, just looking at it in the dining room would be a joy. It's art. As art it doesn't have to be useful. The fact that it is amazingly useful is just a bonus.