GR translation: wheeling his bicycle

[David Payne]

"Wheeling" is used both ways in English in relation to bicycles. See the OED, for example.

But I think that the nail in the coffin is p. 644 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) of GR: "Bicycle thieves run down the back streets, old pros wheeling them three abreast at a
good pace. "

Surely that can't mean riding? That's the only other time that I could find Pynchon talking about wheeling a bicycle. So I'd assume that Pynchon means "pushing" when he says "wheeling" a bicycle.

Other "wheeling" usages by Pynchon that I found didn't look helpful:

* A couple of times in a couple of books, Pynchon uses 
the word to mean pushing something with wheels that generally has to be pushed, 
like a stretcher. (And no, he doesn't mean riding it down hill in these examples.)

* In "Vineland" it appears several times, always used to refer to riding in a car or on a four-wheeler. 

* There are many example of Pynchon using wheeling to mean rotating, like wheeling stars.

By the way, Mike Jing, I'm really enjoying your questions. I hope you'll keep asking!

> on Tue, 28 Jun 2011 mikezjing at hotmail.com wrote:
>
> That's exactly what I had in mind as well.  Again the published translation was riding and I thought it was wrong.