- Me and Big Red
I like riding my bike. I’m not a sports cyclist, triathlon trainer or courier, I’m just a girl with a desire to get around town unhindered by the crippling costs of a car. There’s also the small detail of not actually having a license. Which seems to come with a MASSIVE stigma attached to it. It’s as if I’ve somehow failed this right of passage into adult life. Somehow I haven’t graduated to the grownups’ club because I don’t drive around in a 2 ton hunk of lethal metal. Well, thanks but no thanks. Unless I end up pregnant with triplets or loose the ability to walk, I am going to stay a ‘non-driver’.
The reason? I’ll say it again, I like riding my bike. Maybe it also gives me an excuse to eat, guilt free, that extra almond croissant at the French Markets… Besides, there needs to be more like me out there. Especially in the inner city area where traffic is nauseatingly slow and parking a myth. After the Sunday Tweed Run along Ponsonby Rd, it only re-enforced my enthusiasm to keep riding. Everyone on that ride had this awesome grin of satisfaction and fun on their face. Because they liked riding their bike too.
Great post. Here’s to enjoying our bikes, the outdoors and almonds croissants!
Looking as stylish as you do in that photo you’ll be encouraging others to do the same I would bet. Love your wheels.
Oh! Me too. I love riding my bicycle – it is the best part of my day. Nice bike BTW
I don’t know if the stigma of being non-licensed is perhaps quite as bad as it used to be, though! I remember in the early 1990s someone finding out I didn’t have a driving license, and they said “Wooooow. That’s SO WEIRD” and basically just couldn’t fathom it at all. I haven’t really had reactions like that in a while.
Thanks for the comments/feedback! x Currently moving offices and wondering how the heck I’m gonna cycle to the corner of Cook st and Nelson without having a freak-out about cycling along a five lane road… Adrian, we are slowly losing that car-centric attitude in NZ. I was so impressed that one of my friends had converted to commuting by train, I think I may have overdone it on the compliments a bit…
There is a trend amongst ‘rich’ countries. Our love affair with the car is ‘running out of fuel’. That is, we have reached ‘peak car’. Although, there are still over 1 billion cars in the world. Phew.
Of note, according to Gordon Stokes of Oxford University, the later people pass their driving test, the less far they drive even once they can. via The Economist