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The Immortal Class
By: Travis Culley , Sandra Day O'ConnoreBook Publisher: Random House
Imprint: Random House Publishing Group
Format: ePub Encrypted (DRM)
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Travis Hugh Culley came to Chicago to work and live as an artist. He knew he'd have to struggle, but he found that his struggle meant more than hard work and a taste for poverty. In becoming a bike messenger, he found a sense of community and fulfillment and a brotherhood of like-minded individualists. He rode like a postmodern cowboy across the city's landscape; he passed like a shadow through its soaring office towers; he soared like a falcon through the roaring chaos of the multilayered streets of Chicago. He became an invisible man in society, yet at the same time its most intimate observer. In one of the most dangerous jobs on dry land, he found freedom.
In The Immortal Class, Culley takes us in-side the heart and soul of an urban icon the bicycle messenger. In describing his own history and those of his peers, he evokes a classic American maverick, deeply woven into the fabric of society from the pits of squalor to the highest reaches of power and privilege yet always resolutely, exuberantly outside. And he celebrates a culture that eschews the motorized vehicle: the cult of human power.
The Immortal Class, Culley's vivid evocation of a bicycle messenger's experience and philosophy, sheds a compelling light on the way human beings relate to one another and to the cities we inhabit. Travis Hugh Culley's voice is at once earthy and soaringly poetic a Gen-X Tom Joad at hyperspeed. The Immortal Class is a unique personal and political narrative of a cyclist's life on the street.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Title of eBook: The Immortal Class | |
| Release Date: 07-02-2001 | |
| Publisher: Random House Publishing Group |
This eBook download is available in the following formats:
| Parent title | The Immortal Class |
|---|---|
| Encrypted (DRM) | Yes |
| SKU | 9780375506659 |
| File size | 577 |
| Internet Security | n/a |
| Printing | Not allowed |
| Copying | Not allowed |
| Read aloud | No Sys requirements Download reader |
| Devices | Samsung Tablet, Apple Ipad & Iphone, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo eReader, Aluratek Libre, Iliad, Nokia, Blackberry, Hanlin |
| Note | ePub, short for electronic publication is one of our favorites and should be yours for a couple of reasons. ePub offers reflowable text giving you flexibility to manipulate how the content is presented. Moreover, lots of cool features are now being developed for the reader like advanced video and audio. ePub is now an industry standard, so all of the "non-propreitary" hardware manufacturers are now supporting it. |
The Immortal Class
Chapter 1
Chapter one
Daybreak
6:48 a.m.
there is no distinction between man and machine when I mount a bike like
this one. Trusting all of my weight to the right pedal of a simple pulley
system, I overcome the resistance of two thin tires bound by an aluminum
frame and a steel chain. A small disk at the axle of the back wheel, slowly
giving way to the force of my weight, holds the pressure taut against the
chain. As I lean forward, the weight of my body pulls the cog around the
rear axle, turning it one inch. The wheels, held tight by a matrix of metal
spokes fixed to a hub, are pulled around a set of ball bearings by the
torqued cog. Eighteen inches of rubber wheel crawls forward.
My weight shifts from pedal to pedal, reversing the side-to-side tilt of
the frame. Like a plucked guitar string, the sideways sway of the cycle is
narrowed. Lateral motion is exchanged for speed. Ten yards. One block. One
mile. This specific process repeats itself endlessly. The press and pull of
my legs draw the chain around a disk attached to a set of crank arms and
pedals. All the parts work as a single organism, absorbing the asphalt and
the cold wind while adding power to the spin of the wheels to build
momentum. My torso, held up by arms gripped to handlebars and toes clipped
into pedals, yanks the seat side to side. The bicycle and I shoot forward,
going south into the Loop as the Great Lake rolls eastbound and another day
begins in Chicago.
As I bolt headlong down from the Michigan Avenue Bridge to Madison Street,
each dark Bauhaus shape blurs into the cold stone facade of its Gothic
neighbor. I keep on, coasting in the pedals, tak...
Chapter one
Daybreak
6:48 a.m.
there is no distinction between man and machine when I mount a bike like
this one. Trusting all of my weight to the right pedal of a simple pulley
system, I overcome the resistance of two thin tires bound by an aluminum
frame and a steel chain. A small disk at the axle of the back wheel, slowly
giving way to the force of my weight, holds the pressure taut against the
chain. As I lean forward, the weight of my body pulls the cog around the
rear axle, turning it one inch. The wheels, held tight by a matrix of metal
spokes fixed to a hub, are pulled around a set of ball bearings by the
torqued cog. Eighteen inches of rubber wheel crawls forward.
My weight shifts from pedal to pedal, reversing the side-to-side tilt of
the frame. Like a plucked guitar string, the sideways sway of the cycle is
narrowed. Lateral motion is exchanged for speed. Ten yards. One block. One
mile. This specific process repeats itself endlessly. The press and pull of
my legs draw the chain around a disk attached to a set of crank arms and
pedals. All the parts work as a single organism, absorbing the asphalt and
the cold wind while adding power to the spin of the wheels to build
momentum. My torso, held up by arms gripped to handlebars and toes clipped
into pedals, yanks the seat side to side. The bicycle and I shoot forward,
going south into the Loop as the Great Lake rolls eastbound and another day
begins in Chicago.
As I bolt headlong down from the Michigan Avenue Bridge to Madison Street,
each dark Bauhaus shape blurs into the cold stone facade of its Gothic
neighbor. I keep on, coasting in the pedals, tak...
