We don't feel confined and earth isn't squeezed between races like the ones above, but in an unseen way we are held in place by centrifical force and gravity. So the analogy doesn't hold up perfectly, but we are riding a cosmic bicycle cruising along an old astronomical railroad grade. All the bearing balls in our bike are spinning, bathed in beautiful slippery grease, moving through the great vacuum.
Riding a bike is like riding a planet. It rolls frictionlessly along, like a bird in flight. The feeling is of doing something greater than it appears. The amazement of going so fast and far with the turning of pedals continually overcomes me. This is the enjoyment of the effort. The effort put in gets multiplied tenfold by the leverage of the gearing and the non-resistance of all the bearing enabled parts - miracle! HILL! OK if we must speak about hills they do exist. But even the climbing of a hill, as testing as it is, reveals our limits to be much greater than we might think. Looking at a hill beforehand is to be discouraged. While we are climbing it we are in pain. But in the context of the whole ride it is balanced by the descents that make our orbital route equally up and down. And balance is that other greatness of our cyclogical exploration. We go fast (or slow) and we stay upright as we do it. Wow! and to say it backwards woW!!! These mechanical miracles are astounding on so many levels, and to ride them is to celebrate the alchemy of a living thing becoming one with a machine. We are riding a planet because every part of a bicycle was derived from the elements of our planet.
