Bikes are three dimensional objects... or are they? Terry Pratchett (or his ghostwriter here, David Eccles) wrote about a specimen that was involved in another dimension altogether.
Zippworld
As everyone knows, Zippworld is a flattish disc borne through the vastness of interstellar space mounted on the backs of three gigantic aardvarks.
Sprokkyt (the failed wizard's mechanic) eyed all eleven bikes narrowly and decided on the grottiest. In Zippworld the term 'grotty' was one of highest esteem, but this bike looked as though it had been assembled by a drunken, mentally-retarded spider, with Parkinson's on a bad Friday. Also it had rust. Terminal rust. A small orange cloud of rust accompanied Sprokkyt as he dumped the machine on the highway. Horrendous squeaks and groans rent the night as he mounted. Perhaps it was a mistake to steal this one...
So where to buddy?
It was very strange, the thing didn't seem to want to move. He trod heavily
on the pedal. It wouldn't budge; then suddenly it flew round and took a vicious
bite out of the back of his ankle.
Hey quit the funny business
buddy, where to?
Someone seemed to be talking to him, though there was no one around: the croaky
voice was, well, sort of inside his head. Now it sounded a bit irritable.
Say what's the big deal,
ain't we goin' nowheres?
Oh no, it was the bike, the bike was definitely talking to him, it had to be
a wizard's bike, a magic bike, definitely a mistake... "Oh shit" uttered Sprokkyt
faintly.
Which was another mistake.
The appalling jerk as the machine leapt forward would normally have left him spread all over the road had he not somehow had his feet inextricably jammed in the clips. A spray of bright orange sparks Catherine-wheeled out of the rear cog as the bike reared up with the torquespin, only to come down with a bone-crunching thud which brought Sprokkyt's chin into intimate but painful contact with the stem. The machine was flying forward at a very alarming rate, and it was definitely taking Sprokkyt with it. The road was hurling itself at him so fast that he only got a fleeting glimpse of the man-hole cover in the road ahead lifting itself up and standing politely to one side to let him plummet down, down into the abyss, and the abyss -- as he was beginning to realise rather quickly -- led to only one thing: viz, The Main Drain, The Central Urban Sewer for the whole of Bonkh Morpork, the bodily evacuations of millions and diverse and hideous life-forms living on assorted diets ranging from the downright rancid to the unbelievable. Ghastly effluvia assailed his nostrils. If he was not to shortly end up in the proverbial he would have to do something, and fast. Gagging on a lungful of rich, thick, brown corrosive gasses he just managed to croak out the magic word, "Back!"
the result was almost as spectacular: the brake blocks emitted another shower of iridescent orange sparks, began to glow red-hot, then white, and finally exploded. Sprokkyt had the unpleasant sensation that his eyeballs had sprung some 20 yards out of his head before snapping back into their sockets again with a loud twang as the bike went into reverse drive out of the main drain. Riding a bicycle backwards at speed may not be fun, but it was as a tea party compared to the reception committee that awaited him at the unfortunate place where he'd stolen it. Far from rolling out a red carpet FOR him, it looked much more likely that they were going to make a red carpet OF him.
"Gemme outta here!" he gasped, grasping the handlebars so tightly that the machine gave a little yelp. That was the last straw; it had been rudely awoken from its rust-filled dreams of ample feminine buttocks by this prevaricating prate ...Make ya goddam mind up, willya!... and there was no knowing what unspeakable dangers might threaten the saddle with Sprokkyt in his present ill-controlled state of fear.
"Anywhere, anywhere, far away as possible!" pleaded the hapless rider. OK wiseguy snarled the machine, whatever you say.
The pursuing group, who were all about as pleased as a packaged-deal group of piranha fish having just discovered that their hotel doesn't actually have a swimming pool, comprised the following: three bloated warlocks on ATB versions of Bodicea's chariot, a large, hairy, yellow multi-legged creature on a machine bristling with extra bear traps and tryathlon bars, three vampire-bats on evil mat-black dependants (similar to a recumbent, only the rider pedals upside-down), four witches on vroomstick tandems and a small pink dragon on a lime-green fairycycle. There were all heading after Sprokkyt down the main rimward carriageway in the Zippworld rush hour at a speed which could only be described adequately with superlatives prised out of the Ronkyt Encyclopaedia of Amazingly Rare & Unobtainable Bits & Pieces. A huge sign loom ahead. 'Rimside 2km - yaw gnorw eht gniog era ouY - Zippworld welcomes careful driv...' It was followed almost immediately by another even larger sign vaguely resembling the contents of a spaghetti factory dropped from several miles high; the Spoke/Rim Interchange was coming up, fast -- Yeeeeehah, I'm enjoying this! -- rather too fast.
"Well I'm not!" shrieked Sprokkyt, as the demented machine shot up the slip road between two files of steaming Dyna-Sours waiting for the , oh no, the lights. They sailed through the Red -- in this case the yawning jaws of a 700 tonne HGV artik (hairy Gargantuan Velosaurus) -- crossed four lanes of juggernauts, through the central reservation (much alarming a peaceful encampment of Toklyp Indurains), over a pedestrian bridge, down another slip road and then miraculously on to the high speed maelstrom of the Rim-Road.
Sprokkyt immediately realised that his bike had managed to throw off the chase group, Yeeeeyip, waaahay! -- the machine was becoming hysterical. The trouble was that he was now chasing the chasers, and was unable, aaargh, to stop the gap closing. The wizard's bike was not only on a private trip of its own, it seemed also to be disintegrating, clouds of rusty flakes whirling in its wake, spokes flying left and right in twangling parabolas. Any moment now there was going to be an accident he thought, his eyes widening so much that the whites were in danger of running into each other like badly fried eggs.
They ripped through the bunch like a demented cannonball: the small pink dragon was in the lanterne roughe position and so was the first to go, bursting in a loud explosion of charming purple sparks, then Sprokkyt's berserk wheels tore through the rest of the startled platen smiting it hip, thigh and skinpants. He was still accelerating as they telescoped the last vroomstick, bits of vampire clinging to him like rags of dead umbrella; the hard shoulder was a bit bumpy at this speed but at least he was in the clear now... bump... the clear... Geeee-ronimo!
He was in the clear, and probably for the rest of eternity, since he had just fallen off the edge of the world.
© David Eccles
Cycling Plus, December 1993