This bike, spotted amongst the freaks at the Missoula, Montana Tour de Fat, is indeed made from a log. Sustainable? Most likely. But talk about inefficient use of chain. If we had to guess, we’d say that thing uses at least sixteen feet of the stuff. Not content to just show you a picture and let it be, we decided to ask our resident literary critic Dr. Winfred Von Burstein, what he thinks this log bike signifies.

There are a few clues we can use to decipher what is really going on with this so-called “log bike.” The rider appears on first glance to be rebelling—the log bike a defiant anti-consumerist statement. “I use wood, which is natural,” he seems to be saying. But what I find most fascinating by this almost tribal display is the little American flag. Note that he places the flag behind him and that his cockpit has been placed far forward, as if to suggest that he’s at the vangaurd of a new thrust into the future. He’s placed his patriotism squarely behind him, in the past and he’s ready to move forward using only the most natural materials and some refined factory steel where neccesity dictates. I woulddn’t be surprised to find that this bike evolves toward a more wood-like construction until the rider can safely say that his bike, though non-functional, is perfectly “natural.b