It’s day fourteen. Being on my bike at the moment is where I feel best. It’s where I want to be. I like knowing that I have to ride if I want to go somewhere and I like that it takes me out into the elements. It’s where I feel alive and where things feel possible. There is the randomness of anything happening while I’m out there, who I see, what they say, what I notice.
Like the little girl the other day at the local cafe. While I chatted with the barista about the renovations they’d just finished and then locked up the bikes, Jane chose a table for us. I noticed a little girl, she must’ve been about four years old I guess, was lingering near the stools at that table. It was next to where her mum and a friend were sitting chatting.
I approached our table and the little girl’s mother called her aside as I squeezed past to sit on the round timber seat of the low stool. I smiled at the three of them and said hello. A well-read copy of today’s Gold Coast Bulletin sat folded on one of the low stools scattered around our table.
We ordered and then I turned to looked down at the newspaper and saw an orange, oval shaped bug walking across the sports page. From the corner of my eye I could see the little girl was looking at me.
“Look at this,” I said to her, “have you seen this bug?”
She hadn’t.
“What is it?” she asked in a small inquisitive voice.
“It’s a bug and look at its beautiful colours.”
“What’s it doing?” she wondered.
“Well, I think it probably wants to be in a garden somewhere in a plant or a tree. But you know I think at the moment it’s just reading the paper.”
Over the next half hour we had a few different conversations with this little girl who is still learning to form her words and patch information together into full sentences. We talked of the wild storm two days ago, how she was at kindy when it happened and how some of the boys and girls were scared but then after the rain was over they went outside and jumped in the puddles!
We talked about how she was going to swimming lessons that afternoon and when I asked her what she does at swimming lessons, I learnt she does kickboard, ham (hand) sandwiches and shows me how one hand is placed over the other with arms outstretched, and dolphin and swim to mumma or swim to dadda. There were other things mingled in there that I couldn’t decipher but I got the idea that swimming was fun.
We had a short rest in our conversation when her strawberry milkshake arrived, but it was only brief and I learnt some more. She showed me her umbrella, pink with a deep crown and printed with a cat face and a small yellow fish (that was definitely not Nemo because Nemo has white stripes); and explained the many ways of holding the u-shaped pink plastic crook in a tiny hand.
Most of all though, I learnt that my new little friend with the open face and eyes that wander into space above and around as she thinks of what she’s heard and what she will say, has a bike. It has three wheels, is painted purple and carries fairies.
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“I’m a fair weather rider” she said.
The yoga class was over and people were collecting their shoes, shorts, keys and bags to leave. It was 7.30am and the humidity was high after some morning showers.
“Are you on your bike today?” I heard someone ask.
“No, not with the rain this morning. I’m a fair weather rider”, came the reply .
Perhaps it was my imagination but I sensed a note of something in her voice. Was it disappointment at not riding? Was it acknowledgment of a perceived failing? guilt? or relief to have a quick and easy response to the expectation that she should be on her bike?
When I heard it though, it made me wonder how loaded the campaign to take up a bike lifestyle can become. There was no need to give a reason or any justification for not riding her bike – but she did. There have been times when I’ve done the same.
Many of us want to ride our bikes, recycle our rubbish, take public transport, consume less, be contributing to a cleaner planet and then we can feel compromised, if we don’t. The choice to ride a bike is an expression of values and remaining authentic to them is not always easy.
As I prepare this post, there is an afternoon thunderstorm rumbling and darkening the skies to the west. The wind has started to swirl the trees. I check the BOM (Bureau of meteorology) website to check the forecast: SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING: DAMAGING WINDS, HEAVY RAINFALL And LARGE HAILSTONES. Any plans to ride to my yoga class tonight might be kaput.
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Normally, it’s an empty concrete breezeway with life-sized replicas of humpback whales suspended from the ceiling and the sounds of recorded whale song wafting in the air. It’s a pedestrian throughway separating the Art Gallery and the Queensland Museum at Brisbane’s Southbank, one that I walk briskly through in winter when it becomes a chilly concrete funnel for cold winds and one that I stroll slowly along when summer heat hangs in the air outside. Last Saturday, I spent the whole afternoon there. It had become a corridor of cycling chic, inspiration and fun.
As I walked up the stairs from the State Library, which was still recovering from Thursday’s fierce storm, an amplified voice said, ..it’s up to the people. If you want more bike lanes and better bikeways, you have to write to your politician. Politicians don’t get much mail about it and if they don’t get mail about it, nothing will happen. A program of speakers (in “Spokers Corner”) was in full swing.
The scent of fresh paint led my eyes to a line of seven bikes all painted stark white. Each had the beginnings of a colourful design and an artist concentrating on where the next brushstroke should be placed. I looked further along the normally empty passageway to see it filled with people, bikes and optimism. I’d arrived at Pedal Brisbane, a day-long exhibition, a collaboration with the Queensland Museum, to celebrate, highlight and promote cycling culture.
…this exhibition carried a message of what cycling can become – a means of self-expression and a two-wheel journey to transforming individual lives, cities and societies. It’s a grand vision but it’s possible.
If your most familiar image of cyclists involves some combination of racing bikes, fast riding, sweaty lycra, large groups of cyclists on the weekend roads and in the coffee shops, then Pedal Brisbane added another vision. It highlighted the fringe of cycling culture that combines style and function to create a lifestyle of riding for transport, pleasure and exercise along the way.
I saw bamboo bicycles, timber bikes, electric bikes for more speed with less sweat, foldaway bikes for people with limited space to store a bike, and a Dutch cargo bike for transporting small children and groceries and other goods in a stable two-wheel pedal powered carriage. It expressed the edge of cycling culture that involves innovation, art, design, film, photography, advocacy and initiatives to bring more people to bike riding, and bike riding to more people.
For me, the Pedal Brisbane exhibition carried a message of what cycling can become – a means of self-expression and a two-wheel journey to transforming individual lives, cities and societies. It’s a grand vision but it’s possible.
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a bike for all seasons 