Vikycle
It’s ridiculous. It’s anachronistic. It’s exceptionally spiky. And yet, they just pulled the Vikycle out of a new archeological dig in Norway. It’s been tentatively dated as being from the 9th Century AD, and everything about it looks about right. Except for the fact that it’s, well, a bicycle.
But it’s a Viking bicycle. You can best imagine it as a two-wheeled Hot Wheels where the rider sat in the seat over the back wheel and used wooden grips to turn the front wheel (both of which were exceptionally wide and sturdy. The two wheels also sported iron spikes on both hubs; similar, but longer spikes were mounted on the Vikycle’s front. Steering was by a fixed crosspole, and the archeologists who discovered this artifact actually reported officially that it felt like the Vikycle literally sneered at the concept of brakes.
Add to that a giant skull with gemstone eyes on the front (which is a bit incongruous, actually) and a raven motif (which is not), and you have… the Vikycle. Clearly whoever got buried back then was a deeply strange individual, with even stranger hobbies and interests. Because, aside from everything else, the Vikycle is fairly pointless as a weapon of war. It’s just too heavy, too clumsy, and too downright — again — ridiculous.
Then again, the Vikycle is currently missing. As are the archeologists who pulled it out of the ground last month. And every scrap of artifacts that they pulled out of that dig, too. The last messages from the dig expedition head give the usual warning signs; rambling observations, casual acceptance of macabre events, increasing amounts of obsessive behaviors. In short: everything that tells an experienced field team that they need to break out the exorcism gear.
And maybe the field exorcism gear, because there’s a report that just came in of a bicycle shop in Trondheim being attacked and looted by a motley group of people wearing rusty armor, waving around rustier swords — and being led by a cackling older man on a “wooden bike with spikes.” They made off with enough bikes for everybody and repair gear to boot, while leaving the paper money behind. Nobody was killed, but at least one person was put in the hospital; she’s currently getting shots for tetanus.
…So. Just go and sort all of this lot out, all right?
I was overjoyed when my prediction (the dudes running the site have decided to take up Vicycle use) was rewarded.
On the other hand, I cannot figure out how to say “Vikycle”. If that ‘k’ were a ‘c’, it would be “vie-cye-cle” or “vie-ci-cle” (i.e. one of the normal pronunciations of bicycle with a ‘v’ replacing the ‘v’), but that ‘k’ is throwing a months worth of wooden shoes in my brain.
I say it Vike-sicle. Which isn’t exactly how it’s written, but what the heck.