cycling around a city makes you feel alive
There is something special about riding a bicycle around the middle of a city. You weave through cars, people and anything else, crossing town quicker than than anybody else in rush hour. Even better it’s you that’s doing it, not the car or the oil it’s burning, just you, burning off this morning’s dodgy fry up. When was the last time you saw a fat person on a bike anyway?
Even better, you get to see the world, I mean really see it. You can hear the birds and the buskers, smell the food and the garbage and actually catch a person’s eye. It’s like when you’re on a bicycle, you’re part of the world, you’re not sealed into a metal box listening to U2 on the radio and inhaling some sort of artificial citrus aroma.
So OK mum, it is a bit dangerous. I did collect a car a couple of weeks ago after it suddenly turned left across from the right lane, but I saw it coming and bounced off, not hurt just pissed off. You get used to that happening, you can see the mistakes that people are going to make intersections in advance, most of the time when drivers do something stupid they don’t even notice. That’s my excuse for yelling at them.
Besides, you’re only young once, and if I didn’t do anything dangerous life wouldn’t really be all that exciting. I probably shouldn’t play football anymore with my dodgy knee, but I like it, and it’s my dodgy knee to dodge up even further if I want to. I remember reading this:
I get furious when I see billboards of senior citizens and they’re jogging. The only way you could be that fit, that healthy, that tanned and that old is if you didn’t do anything in the prime of your years. I want to be the guy who has fun in the prime of his years.
in an an interview with Jason of the band Grandaddy and I think that kinda sums it up.