Cycling Poems / Literature

A boy rides a bicycle before the first world war. He is eighteen,
almost nineteen - a man, really - and wears his new uniform with
pride. He is cycling along an embankment on the outskirts of a
small town. The sun is halfway towards noon, the wind tousling his
light brown hair; his pinkish lips are mouthing a music-hall ditty
under his sparse moustache. He is going to see a girl he used to
know.

He has no idea he will be dead in a week, his legs thrown out the
wrong way under a snarl of barbed wire. Now he marvels at the
warmth of his muscles as the chain drives the wheels around. Now
his tongue tastes of mint and apples.

"Boy On A Bicycle" - James Roderick Burns