The bicycle: a near perfect machine
Perfection
"They are near-perfect working machines ... They are silent and durable. Tires apart, a well-maintained bicycle will last indefinitely. It is not quite something for nothing since neither nature nor commerce allows such a transaction, but it is pretty damn close ... here is a rare example of a concept so nearly perfect that radical change will never occur.
There's been a lot of links to bicycle-related articles over the past few days, but I just had to share this one in case there really is someone out there who doesn't read the Taipei Times (or the Guardian, where this syndicated article originated).
This article reminds me about the book Around the World on a Bicycle by Thomas Stevens who cycled around the world in 1887 (!), the first person to do so. Links to downloading it from the Gutenberg project can be found in this old post.