The bicycle doesn’t seem terribly important due to our strange moment in history, but don’t be misled. The bicycle allows a person to travel five times as far, five times as fast as walking. A fit but unextraordinary rider can can carry 25kg, or travel over very rough surfaces, or travel 160km in a day. A dedicated rider can do all three simultaneously.

In a tandem configuration, two people with uneven skills, strength and stamina can divide the work of travel unevenly, and arrive together without defaulting to the lesser rider’s pace. A bicycle is so simple that a rider can easily be his or her own mechanic, and carry all the tools necessary to stay on the road indefinitely. The efficiency is unparalleled.

To most people a bike seems like a toy, or a hassle, but that’s only because we have alternative vehicles that decouple the benefits of travel from the costs. And those other modes have, clearly, brought civilization to the brink of catastrophe.

The bicycle was a revelation when the design first matured to practicality. It changed people’s view of the world. In fact, the gay 1890’s were ‘gay’ because the bicycle liberated people in a way that felt like gliding over the earth.

A bike can do much of what a car does, leave the user healthier than they would otherwise be. It runs on a wide range of fules—carrots, beer, beans and rice (even a horse can’t match that, though a horse can eat freely growing grass. You do not have to fuel your bike while it waits to be ridden, though). Absent cars, bikes are very safe to operate.

The car was never a sustainable mode. The bike broadens a persons horizons by a factor of five. The only downside is that, unlike a bikeless human, a human on a bike can’t climb a tree or go up stairs. But a bike can be ridden to a tree and left at the bottom, or carried over the shoulder up the stairs.