There’s a word missing from the English language. Like penicillin and Velcro, it was discovered accidentally. Unlike those or Play-Doh or the Slinky, I discovered it. It is the verb for propelling a bicycle. Webster would have you believe that word is bicycle, bicycled, bicycling. But as a verb that is wholly inadequate. “I’m going to bicycle to the store” conjures up an image of a man with a handlebar mustache, hair parted down the middle, sitting atop a penny-farthing. It makes as much sense as saying you will car to the store. You don’t car, why would you bicycle?

For the exercise, of course. And that’s why “ride” a bicycle is also inadequate. That connotes the bicycle is doing all the work, and I’m pretty sure—from the sweat on their faces and the muscles in their calves—that is not the case. To carry on the car analogy, going for a drive seems more active than going for a ride. But it’s not.

I suppose you could pedal, but its rather unfortunate homonym instantly comes to mind. Saying you are going to “pedal to the store” sounds as though you are going door to door selling brushes or encyclopedias, leaving your bicycle in the driveway.

Bike is a slightly more acceptable verb than bicycle, but only because it rhymes with hike.

So help me out here. What is the appropriate word? To ________ a bicycle. Don’t do it for me. Do it for English. Do it so that guy can shave his mustache and get off the funny bicycle with the big front wheel.
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While you’re at it, please explain why pants come in pairs. I understand buying a pair of socks or a pair of shoes. After all there’s one for each foot. But why would you buy a pair of pants? And don’t say it’s because you can’t go outside in just your socks and shoes.

Yes, you have two legs and a pair of pants covers both legs. If you cut the legs off the pants, you’d essentially have underwear and it would also be called a pair but wouldn’t cover your legs. A shirt covers both arms and if you ask the clerk for a pair of shirts he’ll bring over two shirts. (You would use a pair of scissors to cut the legs of the pair of pants, but let’s not go there just yet).