Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) stopped by a high school a few blocks from my apartment* on Wednesday and hopped on a bike. But the bike didn't go anywhere! I don't understand why.
Here is a GIF of Rangel on the bike that we made from a video at Business Insider.
Normally when you pedal that much, you go places. So what is going on with the bike? Some theories.
1. Maybe it is broken. If you look closely, you can see that there is no rear wheel. You have to chain your bike up in special ways in New York City or people will steal your wheels, as I understand it, but I thought that was the front wheel? I don't really know how it works.
2. Maybe he's just pretending to peddle. He really looks like he's peddling, but maybe his feet aren't on the pedals? Magicians do a thing called "misdirection," in which they wiggle their fingers or whatever so you won't notice them stealing your car. That thumbs-up is ... suspicious? I am trying to see if he's peddling, but I keep getting misdirected by watching that thumbs-up.
3. Maybe he is contractually obligated to ride only Citibike. New York has a thing called "Citibike," which is like D.C.'s publicly available red bikes except blue and more heavily branded. I don't think Congress is allowed to have sponsors (Editors: Please insert a joke about campaign finance), but maybe they are. And you can't ride Citibike up on 102nd Street because it's available only in the snobby parts of Manhattan south of 59th and in stupid ol' Brooklyn.
4. Maybe this is Photoshopped. It looks Photoshopped! There are lots of pixels.
5. Maybe it is a metaphor.
6. Maybe he is moving, it's just that the whole room is moving around him, like that Jamiroquai video from the late 1970s. Except: Where's the hat?
We have a call in to Mayor Bill de Blasio's office and to the New York Board of Education to see whether they know why Rangel wasn't moving anywhere. We will update this post when de Blasio responds.
* I know you don't care that this was near my house, any more than I care about stuff that happens near your house, unless you live near me, in which case, hello! I mention this mostly because it's strange when things that are even a tiny bit newsy (or less, in this case) happen near where you live and you have no idea. All the kids in that class were probably pretty stoked about Rangel showing up, despite the fact that the school isn't in his district, which I'm sure they knew. (His district starts a couple of blocks north.) Anyway. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. This was near my house! Pretty interesting, I know.
Philip Bump writes about politics for The Fix. He is based in New York City.
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