It's a busy time for the bike world. In France, the Tour de France is progressing through its early stages, giving cycling enthusiasts a reason to wake up early (and play Kraftwerk on their eventual commute). In Chicago, cyclists are prepping for this weekend's Tour de Fat, the traveling pro-bike parade and festival sponsored by New Belgium Brewery. In addition to covering CHIRP's much-ballyhooed involvement in this year's Car Trader promotion, we here at the blog have also been listening to unusually high amount of bike-related music. For this week's Top Five, I picked out our five favorites.
1) Hawkwind - "Silver Machine" (1972)
Hawkwind was many things: a pioneering space rock group, designers of a record sleeve that doubles as D&D armor, and one of the few bands to require a separate Wikipedia page just to sort out its membership. You can also add "bike enthusiasts" to that list, at least when it comes to former singer Robert Calvert. Calvert penned the group's biggest (and spaciest) hit, but the sci-fi sound of "Silver Machine" wasn't about a flying saucer; according to a 1981 interview with Cheesecake, it was about the silver racing bike the singer owned growing up. Although he wrote the lyrics tweaking the high-tech aspirations of the Space Race, Calvert didn't sing them. That honor went to former Hawkwind bassist and Motörhead singer Lemmy Kilmister, whose own boyhood sport of choice was a variation of softball played with a freshly polished human skull.
2) Dukes of Stratosphear - "Bike Ride to the Moon" (1985)
Another song, another bicycle-as-spaceship image. This time, it's courtesy of XTC's Andy Partridge, moonlighting as Sir John Johns of the made-up-but-plausible psychedlic band The Dukes of Stratosphear. Lovers of pastiche might recognize the song's lineage; it's a direct descendant of earlier pro-bike tracks like Pink Floyd's "Bike" or the lost "Do You Like Worms?" portion of the Beach Boys' Smile. Taken on its own, however, the song presents a strong case for two-wheeled exploration (and the whimsy that often accompanies it) that just about anybody can agree with.
3) cLOUDDEAD - "Physics of a Bicycle" (2001)
As evidenced by the fact that I spend my afternoons writing top five lists for a music blog, I didn't major in one of the STEM fields. Thus, I'm unqualified to discuss the actual physics of a bicycle (although a quick Google search reveals plenty of articles on the forces keeping you upright on two wheels). What I am qualified to do is agree with the sentiments expressed by hip-hop collective cLOUDDEAD on this hymn from their 2001 Peel session: there's something spiritual about speeding down the path with only the sounds of the wind and wheels to keep you company. Hallelujah, Schwinn. Hallelujah, Huffy.
4) The Cool Kids - "Black Mags" (2008)
Bike trivia: the "mags" in the title of "Black Mags" refers to magnesium, the metal of choice for the distinctive wheels when they were first introduced in the 1960s. Although the industry moved on to sturdier alloys in the ensuing decades, the name stuck; we still call them mags, and they still look totally rad. Just ask Chuck Inglish and Mikey Rocks, whose anthem to neighborhood cruising touches on another universal facet of bike ownership: the desire to look fly as shit.
5) Yarn Owl - "Bicycle" (2009)
As the vehicle of choice for this generation's hipsters, bicycles feature prominently in plenty of twee songs. Unsurprisingly, there were also plenty of worthy contenders that almost occupied this slot. The Clientele's "Bicycles" is great, but a little too autumnal for the summer riding season. The Decemberists's "Apology Song" made a strong case, but who wants to celebrate the total bummer that is bike thievery? In the end, this track from Seattle foursome Yarn Owl won out. It's a simple love song, but its execution translates those feelings into a heart-shaped map, with paths ready to be ridden by the all the lovers out there with a bike and someone to long for.