Has Your Bike Got A Name?
It’s funny how we do this, isn’t it? Start off with inanimate objects, yet before long we’ve attached all sorts of anthropomorphic characteristics to them. It starts by simply refering to ‘it’ as ‘he’ or ’she’, and before you know what’s happening, this thin end of the wedge has opened you up to all sorts of strangeness. ‘She’ gets a personality . . . and finally, a name.
Those are our bikes up there in the banner picture, and they’ve all got names:
- Wilf, my Sturdy Commuting Bike, is named after Wilfred Owen. I’ve no idea why - it just seemed right & proper
- Trixie’s a fixie. And a bit of a minx to boot
- Christine started out as Gina (she’s a Giant bike), but after she tried to kill me in each of the first three races I did with her, I decided that she was like that car in the Stephen King book
- Flash belongs to my Daughter . . . and has a sparkly, glittery saddle
- Daisy . . . well there’s that whole thing with the song
- Lilac is Wife’s bike and is, well, lilac. Wife also grew up on farms, where they had cows. Lilac is a good name for a cow, so maybe there’s some bovine memory stuff there too.
Or are we just uniquely unhinged in this?
+++UPDATE+++
Turns out that this exact question was posted on The Fredcast just three days ago. This is either evidence that great minds think alike, or that fools seldom differ, or just one of those bizzarre coincidences that makes me wonder if I am in fact being controlled by forces beyond my comprehension! Once you’ve left a comment here, why not pop over to The Fredcast to see further evidence of this sort of unhingedness (’cos it turns out that we’re not alone in naming out bikes).
My bike’s name is “Joe Biden”
. . . strange, to say the least! Want to put any more details on that?
I’ve got a Felt road bike. It’s called Fuzzy!
I’ve never named my bikes.
But I’ve called them plenty of names.
Especially at about mile 93 of a century.
When I was younger we had a cat named Daisy and got the idea because of the song.
My bike doesn’t have a name but it is a he. I think if I had a bike I really, really loved I’d give it a name. My fiance convinced me to buy a really cheap bike as he was convinced I wouldn’t cycle as much as the Cloggies do.
Bill - when I fell off on the ice in December, I called Wilf a whole bunch of names. It probably took me a full minute to say [shout] them all, never once repeating myself. All words that my mother doesn’t know that I know.
Elle - you’ve already decided that it’s a ‘he’. That’s the thin end of the wedge, you know. Soon you’ll be talking to him as you ride along . . .
Barney. Because my 94 Koga-Miyata is old and purple.
My kids are always naming their bikes, but I having really ever sat down to figure out their names.
I wish I could say I have a romantic sense of the personalities of my bikes, but I will admit, I don’t feel that… I mean I love my bikes, and I know them really well, and I appreciate and admire them… but they’re more like those drinking buddies at the pub, you don’t know their names and they don’t know yours but you know each other… and you don’t need to know each others names because that’s just not important. You know they’d have your back if things got sticky at the pub and there was some sort of brouhaha… You know their souls… you don’t need to know their names.
Brad - I need to get Algernond to read your comment. He thinks I’m uniquely Geek for never knowing anyone’s names!
I was going to name my new road bike, Candy. From the Bow Wow Wow song “I want Candy” because I wanted to substitute riding for eating sweets and I like the song. But it hasn’t really stuck. so not sure if I just need to get to know it better to name it, or if I am not the naming type.
I also have an old hand-me-down mountian bike that saw some upgrades last year before the purchase of the road bike. It is on the indoor trainer now. I think it’s name might be Spin-evil. taken from the name of the dvds I watch while riding it.
I can’t really believe that I even own 2 bikes. apparently Brad is rubbing off on me in more ways than one.
I’m suprised you can remember all your bikes names actually, although I guess having them pasted at the top of your blog helps……
Those guys at the pub, whose names Brad doesn’t know, I would say that just shows a lack of commitment to the friendship…. can either take them or leave them….
My new bike is a Trek FX 7.1 and its name is Schwarzfahrer. Schwarzfahrer is literally “black rider” in German; since the bike is black it seemed apt. Idiomatically it means “fare-dodger” though so it recalls my days riding the subway illegally in Boston - and Hamburg & Munich.
I ride a Felt F75…Felty is her name. I know, real original eh? But, the name was bestowed upon her by a dear friend, so it stuck. She’s my friend!