So you’re thinking about riding the village bicycle. It happens to everybody. Maybe you don’t have the patience to get your own bicycle. Maybe you like the freedom that comes with the village bicycle: You can ride it as far as you want, for as long as you want, and then when you get tired of it, you can throw it out on the street. Then again, maybe you’ve never owned a bicycle, and you’d like to get some practice riding one before you get your own. Our grandparents frowned on such things, but this is the modern age, after all.

What’s nice about the village bicycle is that you don’t need to treat it as nicely as you’d treat other bicycles. For one thing, you don’t need to be exclusive. The village bicycle won’t mind if you occasionally ride another bicycle. And you can do all those crazy things you would never do with your own valuable bicycle. You can ride it on the beach, or on the floor. You can even ride two bicycles at once. That would be crazy.

But you start thinking it over. An awful lot of guys have ridden that village bicycle. Who knows what kind of stuff you’ll find on the handlebars. The seat looks a bit loose. The wheels have gotten all flabby with age. Is that rust contagious?

Then again, you don’t want the village bicycle because it’s pretty. You want it because it’s there; it’s easy, practically begging you to hop on.

Just how does the village bicycle become the village bicycle? Who is the first one to ride it? Is it an impulse buy, instantly regretted and tossed aside on the street like common trash, out there where anybody can have it? Maybe it was some guy’s first bicycle, and all it took was a couple of days to figure out he was looking for something different. Or maybe this guy was a pro. Maybe he picked up the brand-new bicycle and showed it the ropes. Did he lose it by accident, or did the village bicycle get tired of him?

Who knows, maybe this village bicycle could be more than just another village bicycle. Maybe you’ll want to do more than just ride it. Sure, its handlebars are a bit droopy; sure, its pedals wheeze a bit from years of hard living. But after all, you’re a unique person. You don’t want one of those shiny new bicycles you see out in White Plaza, glistening in the sun with their tall thin frames. You want a bicycle with some character. You want a bicycle that’ll ride you, occasionally.

After all, when you get right down to it, isn’t every bicycle a village bicycle? Nobody ever buys their bikes brand new — unless they want it to get stolen. Sure, some people find themselves a bicycle the first day of freshman year and then ride it for life. But that’s rare. Most of us go from one used bicycle to the next. We leave some marks on each of our bicycles, and they leave a few marks on us.

But hold on now, son. Let’s think this through. Even if you really did love the village bicycle — and not just love how long you can ride it, I mean real love — it would never really be your bicycle. Your buddies, the ones who rode it before — what would they think? Hell, what would you think? What if every time you hopped on and started riding, you were thinking about when Bill had his ride, or Jesse, or Sean or Al? What if the village bicycle was thinking of them, too?

It’s too much trouble, you think, riding that old bicycle. You’d better just walk for now. Further on you’ll find a good deal, maybe a used bike that’s like new, or maybe even a pretty young thing made up with bright colors that still rides nice and tight.

And then you get really drunk and you sleep with the village bicycle. It happens to everybody. That’s why it’s the village bicycle.

Darren Franich would like to assure you that the above article has nothing to do with the bicycle ban. Go to urbandictionary.com. Then email him at dfranich@stanford.edu.