Photographer

Photojournalism > Barcelona's Bicycles

The wheel, considered by most people as history's greatest fudamental invent, has been spinning unmeasurable evolutionary processes in human destiny. During the period between 8.000 and 5.000 b.C., an age of colossal technological discoveries, in the strip of semi-arid countries between the Nile and Ganges rivers, the man invented the plow, the sail-boat, the metal's founding processes, jewels and the solar calendar. All these invents are based in the circular principle of the wheel. The first indication of the existance of the wheel being used as an auxiliary in transportation is registered in a clay plaque wich was found in Sumeria, a part of the ancient Mesopotamy, in the year 3.500 b.C. The cinema also showed all of this invention's power in the legendary movie "Modern Times", from 1936, brilliantly stared by Charles Chaplin. And one of the most pleasurous and diffunded uses of the wheel is, without a doubt, in a bicycle! It's kind of hard to precise its origin. In 1966, italian monks, while restauring some of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts, discovered drawings dated of 1490 that resemble a machine much similar to today's bikes, even including pedals and chain traction. In Germany, there is a model named Kassler bicycle, dated from the year of 1761. Still, it's true origin is yet unknown, as the french claim that this model was exported by them to that country. For some, it's a sport; for other, transport. Freedom, romance, action and pureness are often associated with bicycles. The wind on the face, the satisfatory balance that is needed, the inocent and clean way of moving that its pair of wheels gives us still put smiles in faces of every culture in the wolrd. And you, what was the last time you rode one? I've been using it almos everyday and I recomend...