There are many great reasons to ride a bicycle around Melbourne: it’s the fastest mode of inner-city transport; you get exercise on the way to work; and you always get a rock-star park out the front of your destination.
But I think my favourite is reason is the conversation.
As I rode home last night, two 40-something men ahead of me were engaged in an intimate conversation as they rode along the bike path.
One man lamented that he just didn’t have the networks here that he had in New Zealand, his companion replied with a knowing “hmmm” and a nod of his head.
It was a touching scene and one I couldn’t imagine happening if those same two men had been driving their cars home instead of riding their bikes.
Bicycles are a vehicle for human interaction. They just lend selves to deep conversation, greater connection, or finding love even.
Last summer as I rode helmet-free in the evening sun, a suitor wheeled up behind me and opened the conversation with something to the affect of “nice bike” .
I replied with “I call it my jolly faster bicycle because it makes me go a jolly sight faster then my old one did”.
Then, given that we were traveling at a very easy pace, we had the time to lock eyes, for there to be an awkward pause and my suitor to ask if he could take me out for coffee.
We pulled off the road and exchanged numbers in the shade of a plane tree and then I cycled on to my party and he on to his Friday evening frivolities. You certainly can’t do that in a car!
No, the bicycle is the transportation of human connection. It allows for the holding of hands, the steeling of kisses, the locking of eyes and the ability to converse and laugh along your journey, or even pause for a moment along the way.
What between the cage of steel and glass, the loud engine to drown out conversation and traveling at high speed, there is no opportunity for casual sideways glances between car commuters.
But it’s not just the slow pace or the physical closeness between you and others that makes the bicycle a vehicle of human connection, there’s something more.
Like long train rides, there is something romantic about the whirr of the wheels and the click of the chain and the rushing of wind across your face that makes you feel free to step out of your own world and strike up a conversation with another.
On a bicycle there is also comradery felt between travelers that comes from a shared sense of journey, the suspense for what you might encounter along the way, the excitement about the destination and the smug feeling of knowing that you are propelled by your own human power, not reliant on anyone or anything.
There is a real freedom in knowing you can go anywhere you choose free of traffic, free of the hassles of parking, free of guilt and all on your own steam.
Indeed, the bicycle is the transport of pleasure, a conduit for conversation, a social service and a love transporter.
So if you’re single, love lorn or just looking for friends, go ride a bike.
What do you think?