It was designed to be only as large as necessary. Ariel’s Simon Saunders has designed lightweight bicycles and cars. He knows the Atom doesn’t have much clearance, but said the discovery of “2mm in the battery box” of the Ace bike was “a cause for great celebration.” If you like technical purity, you will love the idea of a bicycle.
And you’ll know what it feels like to deal with it, even if you haven’t ridden a motorcycle but have cycled. In a car, your body movements change the levers and wheels that move other components that turn other things that adjust speed or direction while you are essentially static.
There is still motion on a bicycle, but your body movements, especially leaning, have a wonderfully direct influence on the direction you go.
It is a bit cliché to say that the bicycle feels like an extension of the person, that man and machine are one, that it expands your mind. And it’s also terribly pretentious. But there’s something in it. And there is science behind it.
A university study in Tokyo found that cyclists in their 40s improved their cognitive functions by cycling to work for two months. A 2021 study in the journal Brain Research showed that cycling reduced stress biomarkers by 25%.
“No laboratory experiment can duplicate the feelings a motorcyclist would have on public roads,” said one of the professors behind it.
So it’s official. Bicycles make you too cold, too hot and wet, they cost you time, cost you money and make you more vulnerable. And they leave you much, much happier. I’ll do it as long as my legs allow me.
Steve Cropley on cycling
What I can never get over when cycling is how much more directly you deal with the elements on a bike than in any car. You notice temperature drops at the bottom of valleys. You smell mainly sharp silage and harvested hay. You are very aware of changes in the road surface – for safety reasons – and especially wary of damp spots under trees.