Thursday, December 2, 2010

A Revised History of the Bicycle

One day a long time ago a mechanic thought to himself, "What if I had a horse carriage that was powered by a human being instead of a horse? I could somehow connect my servant's legs to the wheels and have him take me places. Servants may be more expensive than horses, but they just sit around doing nothing while I'm gone. I might as well use them for something." Thus, the invention of the Man-Carriage.

The man-carriage was a great invention, in that it kept your servants from resting at all, thereby getting your full money's worth for their wages. This worked fine, compared to the horse-drawn carriage. The speed was significantly slower, but after several hundred years the servants started developing horse-like quads and rumps and could go as fast as the ancient horses could. These servants were so strong that they would beat Lance Armstrong any day. As time passed, these Horse-Servants became more and more expensive. They refused to work without increased wages via the famous 20 Year Horse-Servant Strike.

After 20 years, the land-owners and other rich folk gave up. They did not give up by paying the horse-servants more money, but by inventing a new kind of carriage. In fact, this was not much of a carriage any more. It was a Bicycle. It had a large carriage wheel, directly stolen from previous Man-Carriages, and a small back wheel made from small children's Yoyos. No longer would the rich land-owners need to pay high wages for Horse-Servants. They could now ride their bicycle to the tea shop for tea and crumpets all on their own.

The bicycle was an incredible invention because it allowed rich men to finally mature. Previously, no rich man had ever experienced physical pain or ever forced himself to undergo any kind of difficulty for the sake of transportation. Previously, all the rich men whined and complained like little boys. They screamed in agony if they happened to get bumped by a fellow rich man on a busy side walk. They never realized that all the servants were becoming wiser and more manly than all the rich men. So the world was a much better place because of the bicycle because it allowed so many men to truly become mature through learning self control.

Men started to have Bike Jousting competitions. Today we would call it Bike Chicken. During mating season men would ride at full speed at one another, pointing their lances at one another and typically one of them would fall to their death. The large carriage wheels caused these Bike Knights to fall from great heights in these competitions. A few competitors started suggesting that the great height of these bicycles was unnecessary, but these men were immediately shunned from the bike jousting community just like prius drivers are shunned today for their lack of American-ness.

These 5 bike jousters who cared about safety developed their own underground society. They met at 2AM for fear of being caught by the "masculine" bike jousters who had the habit of drinking 7 pints of mead before passing out at midnight. The 5 Amigos invented a new kind of bicycle that would revolutionize the bicycle world, if only they could come out of their bike closet someday. The bike was called a Safety Bicycle. It had two 27 inch wheels and a double triangle frame. It looked just like the bicycles that we all ride today.

It took a great amount of time before the safety bicycle was introduced to society. The 5 Amigos were forced to hide their bicycles in fake graves, for fear of being called a Wussy, which also involved having fake funerals for people who left town and never came back. This worked quite well for several years. The safety bicycles were safe and sound inside their graves. One particular safety bicycle was in the grave of Adrien Prideaux, a Frenchman who had spent a year in the Bicycleshire, England, the town of the 5 Amigos. His fake funeral went well and there were only 6 people attending-the 5 Amigos and the inn-keeper, Sam Murphy, who gave Adrien a good deal on a hotel room for a year.

The bike had been in his fake grave for 3 years, which was 3.5 years after he left Bicycleshire. One day, the 5 Amigos were in the local pub, drinking Coca-Cola (the new craze in America), and in comes Adrien Prideaux. The 5 Amigos simultaneously went sheet white. They knew they were in trouble. Unfortunately this local pub happened to be at the hotel where the 6th funeral attendee was both owner and bartender. Sam Murphy couldn't believe his eyes when he saw Adrien. At first he jumped for joy, promptly landing him on the opposite side of the bar. Next, he realized that he was conned. He then turned a brilliant red and started stomping over to the bar stools where the 5 Amigos tried to look innocent.

Sam picked up all 5 men by their undergarments. People later called this technique of bullying Giving a Wedgie. He dragged them out to Adrien's grave with the entire town in hot pursuit. All seven and two hundred residents were there. All the masculine bike jousters started digging up the grave for fear of looking wimpy. They pulled out the coffin and axed it open. There it was. The double triangle frame and the 27 inch wheels. All 37 bike jousters started walking over to the 5 amigos with grins on their face and pounding their fists into their hands. They had their suspicions about the 5 Amigos and now they were really gonna get what they had comin'.

The crowd started mumbling. They were all pointing to the safety bicycle with incredibly contemplative expressions on their faces. The mumbling got louder and people started making remarks like, "Wow, why didn't those stupid bike jousters think of this earlier?" and, "I'll pay 50 pounds to get my hands on one of those." Community members were throwing out offers all over the place, desperate to get their own safety bicycle. For fear of lynching, the bike jousters backed away from the 5 Amigos, looking really foolish. They never bothered the 5 Amigos again.

In fact, the 5 Amigos started their own bicycle company and called it Huffy. They traveled all around the world selling their wonderful invention for reasonable prices at Walmarts in 100 different countries. These safety bicycles became so popular in the entire world that people started to drop the word "safety," giving that wonderful machine the exquisite name, Bicycle.

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