The presidential race begins in earnest today as people in Iowa head off for the mountains of Russia to cast votes for their favorite Republican candidates. We have never understood why Iowans go to the Caucasus to vote, but we are not constitutional scholars. In fact, we wish we could ignore the presidential race entirely, but wanting to be responsible citizens we will let out a long, grudging sigh and try to pay attention.

Of course, as soon as Newt Gingrich begins talking we start to drift off into spectacular daydreams, which — if they don’t involve sex — sometimes involve bicycles.

What if, our wandering mind starts to wonder, this were the sort of world where even Republican presidential candidates rode bicycles? Can you imagine a world like that? No? Oh, come on. It’s fun to consider the type of bicycle each of these candidates might prefer if there were no fossil fuels and they had to campaign by bike.

For example, what do you suppose the Texas Congressman Ron Paul would ride? This iconoclastic libertarian, if he becomes president, promises to destroy any extraneous cogs of the federal bureaucracy that he can get his little grease-stained hands on. He promises to remove the brakes of regulation from our capitalist system. Hey … wait … I know.

You all should decide — this being a democracy. Here. It’s time to vote. What follows is one of those old childhood matching games, where you draw a line connecting each candidate in the left column with the bike you think is the best match for them in the right column. So get out a crayon or a Sharpie and go ahead and just mark your answers right on your computer monitor:

Footnotes:

In case you’re interested, I wanted to add a little more information about a couple of these bikes:

Dave Moulton is an Englishman who built all sorts of bikes — including this one — before retiring from the business in the 1990s. Moulton tells an interesting story about this bike on his blog. (I hope he doesn’t mind me abusing the photo and spirit of this bike in this way!)

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This is not really a trike. It is a sculpture by an artist named Sergio Garcia. It’s real title is “And then there were two.” (I hope that Sergio also does not mind me abusing the photo and spirit of his work in this way.)