lemniscate and bicycling

[Scott Badger]

Orion via Mary:
> >i am something of a bicyclist, and
> >my short and brutal answer is that i imagine
> >the poet was just discounting or romanticising
> >the dual tracks which would be left by
> >an ordinary person bicycling a figure-8.

Is it even necessary for the bicyclist to ride in a figure-8? Even while
riding straight, the rear wheel of a bicycle never follows directly in the
track set by the front wheel - it cuts a "straight" line through the
constantly wavering path of the front wheel. Wouldn't this be a repeating,
if irregular, lemniscate-like pattern? The less "deft" the rider, the more
pronounced the pattern. And not unlike the pattern created by Kinbote's
commentary as it weaves back and forth across the path of Shade's poem,
except here it's a bicycle in reverse, the commentary following the
poem...right?

OED deft -- 1. Gentle, meek, humble; = daft 1. Obs. rare.

Scott Badger