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08 September '04

THE ROCKCYCLE

In the beginning Early man walked, sometimes crawled along chasing all sorts of critters to get a meal, most of them were the fast running kind. Early man couldn't catch them, he was handicapped with just two legs and most of these critters were equipped with four. But early man wasn't about to go hungry because of this. It didn't take him long to invent a spear, a bow and arrow, along with the club. One day he happened upon a large stone shaped like what we know as a wheel. He discovered he could sit up on a hill and roll the wheel down and knock down a critter or two and have an easy meal. He invented road kill. . He also developed hunting tactics which worked pretty well for a while, until he killed and ate just about all of the critters in his neck of world and needed to roam allot more to get a meal. All of this walking and chasing critters would wear out early man and it wasn't a lot of fun.

First attempt at the RockCycle by E.Man

He looked back at his stone wheel and it wasn't long until he figured out with two wheels he could ride down the hill and save a lot of energy for hunting. He tried putting the wheels on an axel but it was a terrible ride, it required he either stand on the axel and run with the turning wheels or hang on and get dragged down the hill. Neither of these two methods where comfortable or fun, so he kept working on an idea he got from watching some of the critters running on the grass plains. He decided to put one wheel in front of the other and connect them with a seat in the middle. He called it the rock cycle. (Note we really don't know what he called it because early man was still grunting and had no language, never mind being able to speak Latin. We do know he did invent the rock cycle from the drawings on cave walls showing early man creating road kill for supper.)

Our early man now had a great way to get his knees in the breeze rolling down the hill and running down game and all sorts of stuff. He noticed how the early women admired him as he flew by with his animal skins and hair flapping. He had to be an awesome sight those big stone wheels thumping and crushing everything in there path with him hanging on for dear life.

Now his only problem was getting the rock cycle back up the hill. The rock cycle was a tad heavy, and it was a lot of work to push it up the hill. This gave him the idea to add a second seat and have a helper ride with him. Remember all of those early women, none of his early man friends would ride with him so he convinced an early woman she would look cool on the back of the rock cycle and she thought so too.

Now he rode down the hill, furs flapping and early woman hanging on with her furs flapping and some of her other parts flapping as the other early men and women looked on. Soon the other early men wanted a rock cycle too, evidently picking up early women was easier after showing them some machismo on a rock cycle. Pushing the rock cycle back up the hill was easier too with the help of early woman. Early man found himself working day and night to build rock cycles for his early man customers. Soon enough, the mountain was full of these early men and women with their furs and hair and other body parts flapping, zooming all over the place on rock cycles.

Early RockCycle invented by E.Man

This upset some of the elder early men and women, because they would complain about the noise and destruction to the mountain from the stone wheels. There were horrific crashes allot of early men and women were killed or crippled when two or more rock cycles would collide. You have to remember they didn't have any safety gear, no helmets, or rock cycling leathers, just some ill fitted furs which let some parts of the anatomy fall out and flap in the wind. Those heavy stone wheels would crush bodies and keep on going, sometimes they would careen into the caves where early man was living and kill other early men and woman.

The elders decided they needed rules and someone to enforce them. So they sat around a campfire and made a list of rules for the rock cyclists to adhere to and keep everyone safe. They elected the biggest early man to enforce the rules, his name was Trup. (Note, over the years the word Trup was corrupted into State Trooper) Now Trup was real effective and he confiscated all of the early rock cycles for infractions of the elders rules. Some were for speeding, some for noise, but most of them were for non compliance with the elder's vehicle inspection rules and lack of personal protective equipment (DOT and Snell foundation approved helmets). None of the rock cycles had lights or brakes as required by the elders, and they didn't grandfather any of the rock cycles even though they were made before the rules. It didn't matter to the elders that the light bulb, batteries, and brakes hadn't been invented yet.

Early man gave up the rock cycle and not until much later on in the worlds development, about a few thousand years, did he pick it up again.

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