The Bicycle Thief (2019)
chicagomag.com
chicagomag.com
Poor guy. Some people's minds are constructed in a way that simply doesn't mesh with modern life. If only he'd discovered extreme sports; he's got the exact personality profile of a champion hang glider pilot/kiteboarder/BASE jumper.
Edit: I wrote that earlier bit about 40% of the way through the article. Now, at 75% of the way through the article, I don't think extreme sports would have scratched the itch for him, either. The level of novelty and adrenaline he trained himself to need could only be satisfied by the professions of drug addict or ancient raiding warrior.
With a well executed, audacious bank robbery you can't tell a soul and every day there is that fear that they will catch you. Even if you ditched that small thing that uniquely connects you to the crime into the uninhabited wilds of Siberia, someone will have seen you go there. Plus you have to explain where the money is from. Even if that is just to your mum.
The thrill is two fold, in the immediate aftermath, getting away with it. And secondly of deception. You have secrets you can't tell. It is human nature to always tell, so this requires mental agility.
What makes this bank robbing special is the bike. It is the perfect getaway vehicle in a society where the police can only follow things up if they have car things to work on.
French Foreign Legion for those of us who don’t know French
Makes you wonder if treatment rather than punishment wouldn't be a more effective remedy...
As you say, if the aim were to reduce crime, then alleviating poverty and providing better mental healthcare would be far more effective solutions.
To call such idea of supporting low emotions "medieval" would be inappropriate towards the Middle Ages.
Maybe we are the ones with emotional trauma, staring at a screen 11 hours a day, obeying authority and aging without scratching the surface of life...
Speak for yourself friend.
I know he was already a category 1 cyclist and thus in great shape (particularly his cardiac health), but going from not squatting to squatting 500 lbs is not something that happens in a month no matter who you are or what you're on. Something was very likely lost/garbled between the source and writer on this point.
> after finally graduating in 1994, Tom moved to Los Angeles to train alongside the U.S. Olympic team
I thought that was a pretty good plan that guy had.
I'm trying not to be cruel, he served his sentence and I don't exactly care that banks lost a few thousand here and there, I hope he's found some kind of peace now. It's just not quite the feel good story that Robin Hood was, this was more a story about unchecked narcissism and substance abuse.
If you want to escape a state, get on a bike with cash and start riding on trails and back roads. The police depend so much on car stops to catch people.
Well, until the surveillance state is fully set up