THE empowering and liberating impact of bicycles has been evident for decades. But its supremacy as an enabler was not well understood until Scientific American in 1973 analyzed the energy consumption of different forms of animal locomotion and concluded that nature’s most efficient traveler was a human on a bicycle.

Steve Jobs used the example of a bicycle to describe the potential of computers: “I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. But then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle ... a human on a bicycle blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts. And that is what a computer is to me — it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”