These days, everyone is cutting back on spending: fewer dinners out, pre-game drinking before hitting the bars and shopping in vintage stores for the latest clothes (welcome to the party, 20 years later....). Some of us have even left the bus or car behnind and jumped on the old trusty (or in my case, rusty) bike. No longer an activity for the Lance Armstrongs and Miguel Indurrain's (I'm not looking up the correct spelling, dammit) of the world, you can't walk five minutes around the city without seeing someone on a bike these days. To coincide with my occasional weekend joyrides around the city, I decided to cut costs and get exercise by biking to work every day. Oh yeah, it's good for the environment, too...forgot about the world there for a sec.
Some of the commuter bikers, such as myself, are dressed normally in gym gear. Shorts, t-shirt, sneakers...the norm. Others don themselves in spandex and feaux pro attire, thinking they're climbing the Pyrenes along with the peleton (no spell check, either). It's a bit ridiculous, but whatever floats your boat. Anyway, Sydney isn't exactly the flattest city in the world, which means at one time or another, you're going to deal with hills. At 7am, five minutes after you woke up and haven't had as much as a drink of water...not cool. But the morning ride is pretty cruisy: through Bondi Junction, through Centennial Park, allll the way down Moore Park Rd and into the nice Surry Hills streets. Can't quite say the same for getting home, which consists of a total of five decently scaled hills. And of course there's the omnipresent wind to go against every day.
It's a good workout, for sure, but after struggling up Oxford, I can't imagine what Lance and his peers have to deal with. Granted, my bike is an $80 K-Mart special, but the French mountainside is about ten times more difficult. One thing the pro riders don't have to deal with everyday are the Sydney buses. While most traffic is considered the "enemy," the flipping buses think every human not in a car is pretty much invisible. The left lane is meant to be shared by bikers and buses, but guess who wins that battle? I haven't quite been swept of the street yet, but there have been a few tricky moments:
Last week, I managed to slam into the back of the bus that had the nerve to stop suddely in traffic. With my less-than-stellar brakes, I wasn't quick enough to stop my tire from getting wedged into the back of old big blue for a few seconds.
The other night coming home, I almost had one of those Puck meets Sopranos moments. I only say that, because the only times I can think of this happening was to Puck from the Real World 3 (San Fran) and to the African kid on the Sopranos, before he got beaten up by AJ's friends, of course. What I'm referring to is the dreaded opening car door. You never see it coming, and if you're lucky enough to react, you pretty much see your life flash before your eyes. The other night, my lightning quick reflexes managed to escape the fate of Puck and swerved from a car door just in time. Thankfully, something good was on the iPod to allow me to reflect on the moment.
You'll notice safety precautions, such as good brakes and iPods, aren't my forte. Don't worry, at least I'm wearing my helmet now! So anytime you're driving in Sydney, give a nice honk to those bikers on the left, don't drive us off the road...and try to look in the rear view mirror before opening the door.
(stunning pic of my bike to come)
