Urban Riding Tips

Tip 186: Find a bike festival sprawling all over your normal cycling route

2012-02-17T23:35:00.001+11:00

You're trundling along, thinking about the day's events, or the answer to 11-across, or how embarrassing your pedaling technique is, and then you see it: tents. People. Vegan food and bright lights. Shills and men on stilts. Thronging throngs of people in loose knits. A healthy living / bicycle festival has taken over the park you ride your bike through. In an irony so delicious you could bottle it and sell it as a celebrity-endorsed marinade, you are forced to dismount your bike and walk.BONUS TIP: What that irony-sauce would go well with is a serve of hare Krishna curry they sell at gigs like this. Lock your bike and go seek them out. On the way, buy a calico bag with all proceeds going to bikes for Zambia. And look: free One Less Car stickers!See what they did there?

Tip 185: Allow an inopportune flat tyre to put you on the path to emotional ruin.

2012-02-16T23:28:00.003+11:00

It's 5.55pm, and you said you'd go buya bottle of wine before meeting your lover at a restaurantapproximately 14 km from here, at precisely 6.30pm. Don't be late, they reminded you. Do not be late.

You're doing the maths in your head. There's a Dan Murphy's on the cross road on the way there. If I takemy bike right inside and buy whatever's in the bargain bin at thefront, I can be in and out in five minutes.

That leaves half an hour to cross town,meaning an average speed of 28 km/h. I can do it, you say toyourself as you roll up your drive-side pant leg. I can do it. Maybe not with respect for all the road rules, but I reckon I can doit.

You're ruminating on whether you willhave stopped sweating before the dessert course as you unlock yourbike.

You grasp the bars with intent, andthrow your leg over, foreseeing the tremendousCadel-sur-Galibier-esque effort that will be required to make ithappen.

But when that first pedal stroke powersyou forward, the city echoes with the sound of rim on concrete, headsturn in horror, and you realise at the same time as everyone elsethat you've got a flat. You will never make it. You are in deepshit.

BONUS TIP: Call and admit to yourlover you haven't gone shopping for tubes since 2004? Blow an insaneamount on a taxi? Try to get a bus and hope the driver is SandraBullock from Speed? Lie on your stomach, pound your fists on theconcrete and wail?

Tip 184: Shoulder your weapon.

2012-02-15T23:50:00.003+11:00

Maybe it's a gutter, maybe its alandslide caused by persistent shelling of a hillside by hostileforces - sometimes on uneven ground you got to get off your bike.

You can push it like a sissy, or youcan lift it.

Now, pushing it like a sissy is fine –great even – if you have the word sissy tattooed all over yourface. In comic sans.

Lifting is where you prove that you'vegot the guns, and/or that you bought a bike as light as the finestmacaroon.

BONUS TIP: Don't hoist it like a matehad fifteen beers with you then asked you to help move a couch.

Raise it like a Marine hoists the bodyof his brothers killed in combat in another meaningless war: crisply, reverently. And with a growing hatred for authority. A hatred thatwill incubate a slow burning desire to never own another machinethat burns the oil his comrades died protecting, to grow a beard,move to San Francisco, stop voting, get some tattoos and rideeverywhere.

Tip 183: Wink madly cause you got a bug in your eye.

2012-02-14T20:30:00.000+11:00

You may think you're hot, riding aroundwith your Frogskins tucked stylishly into the top button of yourChambray shirt, but when some filthy, winged thing from the OrderDiptera is drowning in your lacrimal fluid, scrabbling its hornedfeet against your lens as you attempt to extinguish it's vitalessence by mashing it with your eyelashes, you'll feel pretty shit. As will any pedestrian enticed by your mad winking to step out ontothe road.

BONUS TIP: You and the angry pedestrianmight feel bad, but spare a thought for the hundred-odd larvae backat the bug's house waiting for mum to get home and make her famousdung-and-germ pie. They'll be waiting a long time. A long hungrytime.

Tip 182: How not to get skinned alive.

2012-02-13T23:36:00.001+11:00

You roll through the traffic lightsjust before the big uphill, and there's a couple of dudes rockinglycra up ahead. You drop the hammer just as their thoughts turn tosuffering. As you hear them clicking down through theircassette, seeking solace in a nice easy ring, blast by them likea foul hot wind from the north.

Your legs will hurt but don't showit. Keep your upper body still so it looks like you'recruising.

As you crest the hill, resist the urge to turnround and blow them a big sloppy kiss.

BONUS TIP: If you suffer such a shortage of humility, it will be punished: Later that day the lycra warriors will track youdown, knock you out of your swivel chair, pin you to the floor of the open plan office, close your spreadsheet without saving, then remove your skinand ride off wearing it fluttering behind as a tattered red cape.

Tip 181: Why is steel so insistent about how it's real?

2012-02-13T01:12:00.000+11:00

Of all the bicycle-fabrics, steel seems to be the most unsure of its itself, existentially.
It's always proclaiming how "real" it is. As though the metal whose name stands for toughness would float away ethereally if we didn't know how goddamn present and corporeal it is. Is Carbon mythological? Is Aluminium a fairy-tale? Is @titanium a fake account?
Steel must have some deep-seated issues. What I hear is that it used to be iron, but isn't it funny you never hear about it talking about where it came from?

BONUS TIP: When you think about it, people will tell you something's steel, but how do you know? especially once it's painted, but even when it isn't.
Sure its shiny and grey and it rings a little when you rap it with you knuckles, but how do you know for sure what everyone says is steel is steel?
Maybe it is a grand conspiracy to trick us into buying something we don't even know what it is! Maybe we've been riding round all this time with our eyes closed saying steel is real cause people told us steel is real, but that's just what they want us to think!
Mmm, deep, man, deep. Pass the bong.

Tip 180: Get your cables hooked around someone's handlebars when you park near them.

2012-02-09T22:30:00.000+11:00

Pull your bike.

It's stuck somehow.

Pull harder.

It's still stuck.

Stupid ...fucking... ngh... maybe if I jiggle it

Are my pedals stuck in their spokes? No? Is my bike still locked? No? THEN WHY CAN”T I FUCKING MOVE IT?

WhY! ngh WON'T! ngh YOU! Ngh FUCKING! Ngh GET OUT OF THERE ngh nnngh nngh!?!?

OH! OH! It's those mother blasted cables!

I swear to god I disown my own fucking viscera if I am not gong to get this satan-worshipping shit-spawn machine unhooked off this stupid useless bastard's piece of shit bike.... Aaaand, there you go. phew.

BONUS TIP: To help calm yourself, once the bike is free saw off their handlebars, set fire to your bike, blow up the bike loop that started the whole conflagration then blow off your own head.

Tip 179: Nearly get hit by a falling tree.

2012-02-08T23:57:00.004+11:00

Powerful riding sweeps through the citycreating a mighty wind. Before which the reed bends and the mighty oak creaks.
Ride powerful enough, for long enough, and you'll causethe city's established trees to uproot themselves and tumble, with asurprisingly load roar, and in seeming slow motion, right into thebike lane.

BONUS TIP: Exaggerate both the girth of the trunk, and the proximity. Bythe time you tell this story for the second time, you'll have nearly died and got a bird's nest stuck in your'fro.

Tip 178: Embrace the low effort world of shabby-chic.

2012-02-07T22:28:00.000+11:00

Sometimes it's nice to let your beardgrow. Rather than stressing about shaving and all.

Fuck the high-effort, high expenseworld of modern fashion and just let yourself go. It's aminimalistic, environmentally-sound approach

Let your nose hair grow down into yourmoustache, while your vegemite stains join together until yourwardrobe is all dark brown. It won't affect your self esteem unlessyou decide to let it.

Once you've reached a comfortableequilibrium, start to relax other socially-dictated “standards”.

Don't grease your chain, don't cleanyour downtube, don't dry off your bike and don't clean off the spiderwebs.

It's all just an capitalo-aestheticconspiracy to make you spend more dough on the giant shiny carouselthat is the modern bike industry.

BONUS TIP: Well, it worked for Joaquin Phoenix right?

Tip 177: Carry an impressively large number of beers.

2012-02-06T22:48:00.002+11:00

Passers-by will make eye contact with you, andgive you the nod.

If this has never happened to you, youhaven't carried enough beers yet.

Once you've balanced a cold couple dozen onyour handlebars, you're in the club.

Then when you see someone balancing aslab or better yet, a keg, on one thigh as they pedal up the sunnyroad one saturday afternoon, you'll give them the nod.

Good job! the nod says. Good workmatey. Good one.

They'll feel good. You'll feel good. It's a good club to be in.

BONUS TIP: If you drop your slab, therules of the club say you have to lick up the spilt beer.

Get your tongue intothe cracks in the concrete. Try not to lick the broken glass - unlessthere's beer on it.

Tip 176: Ride in bare feet.

2012-02-05T23:12:00.001+11:00

Seven skin layers, each more tenderthan the last, guard the fragile red inner world from the hard greyouter world.

Unless your pedals are made of slipper,and unless your power output is more candle than 100-watt globe, thegrip on your pedals will bite the tender foot flesh like a turtlenips a curious finger: vigorously.

BONUS TIP: In this world of carbon soled shoes,pearl izumi elite thermal toe covers, and all manner ofcapitalo-podiatry, getting the wind into that yucky green-grey regionbetween the toes can be as liberating as getting out on the bike inthe first place.

Not only does it dispel the fungi, itevokes the wanderlust and simplicity of a bygone era, whenunemployment was stubbornly high, it never rained and all thetownfolk did was ride steel bikes up and down the main street, makingeyes at the young people they'd have to marry to get to know.

Tip 175: Kick a cat (by accident, of course).

2012-02-02T23:44:00.001+11:00

At night, feline senses are tuned tosomewhat to possums, a little to rubbish bins, but mostly to othercats they need to fight in glorious sepia slow-motion to win back thelove of their life.

They pay no heed to the gentle hum of Vittoriasrolling on asphalt as they patrol the night like ninjas.

So don't worry when a fast moving kittyscreams out from under a front fence and gets tangled with your footat the bottom of your cadence.

It's just another tribulation theycan build into their narrative of redemption.

BONUS TIP: It's an adequate device forthe cat masses, but the Scorceses; Coppolas and Von Triers of felinecinema eschew the silent swift bicycle as narrative element.

Toomuch deus ex machina; too much like lazy plotting.

True cattragedy involves falling from serious height and mysteriously landingon your back...

Tip 174: Learn about the awesome power of brands.

2012-02-01T23:20:00.002+11:00

Brands. What are they?

Some dead French guys name and apicture of a crocodile. A greek god and a thingo. A couple letters in aparticular font.

Why?

Somehow the brand has things in itthat rub off on us.

Like what?

We do not know. We don't want to know. Instead we talk about stitching, fabrics and engineering.

How does it rub off on us?

By getting the product. Get the product.

Which brands work best?

Which brands cost most?

Is cycling itself a brand?

Aahahahahahaha! LOLSIES! Mwahahaha. Yes.

BONUS TIP: If you want to feel hotterthan Joan of Arc and more popular than David Hasselhoff circa 2009, show your nous for cycling brands. Here's the secret hidden trick to all of everything. You don't need to be cycling to deploy the awesome power of brandpower!

Wear a Shimano hat to mow your lawn; puta BMC bidon on your desk; and get Huffy tattooed up your innerfore-arm. People will go batshit crazy for you.

Tip 173: Enjoy good value.

2012-01-31T22:58:00.002+11:00

Cycling is theoretically free. Although having to buy three bottles of gatorade g series [Prime, Perform, Recover!] for every single race, commute, or trip to the shops means it ain't as free as it was. :(
The reality is you can only orbit so farfrom the cash register at the local bike shop before cripplingmechanical or status issues send you back into the well-exploitedmine shafts of your bank account.

When it comes to cycling a penny saved is a penny earned. Take bargains when you see them.

BONUS TIP: Bargains are only sometimessocially palatable.

Some things it's better to pay morefor:

“This painting cost $25,000. It's anoriginal McCubbin.”

“Our dinner bill was $400! Can youimagine!”

Other things you get plaudits forbuying low: a Prada skirt at 90 per cent off; a room at the Hyatt forjust $60 a night; a tray of mangoes for just eight bucks.

In trying to figure out which categorythe Aldi bike falls into, consider that a 21-speed for $99 has muchin common with a $400 dinner. Before long they are both going to turnto shit.

Tip 172: Talk back to a cop

2012-01-30T21:48:00.000+11:00

If you ask the cop who pulls you overif he wishes he ever gets to do proper police work, if his kids are proudof him, and whether he's always been such a dick, do it in the knowledge you've not justkissed your chances of leniency good-bye, you've buried them in theconcrete foundations of the big road project your fine will helpfund.

BONUS TIP: If you're out on alightly-trafficked by-way you may take some big bruises home as areminder of the merits of having a big mouth.

“The cyclist appeared agitated atthat time, your honour, and when he lunged at me I used the baton inthe manner set out in my training to minimise the threat to myperson.”

“Case dismissed. Complainant to paythe state's costs.”

Tip 171: Knit your bike something warm.

2012-01-29T21:39:00.002+11:00

Bikes have feelings. As much as theanthropo-centric dominant paradigm will deny it, they feel joy and pain as we do. Maybe more.

They hate those coldmornings like the devil himself. But with no mouth, a bike has no way toexpress their objection to the cruelty visited on them by so-called“higher” beings.

It takes a giant empathetic heart, atrue cyclophile, to understand how a bike feels, and to knit one,purl one until their bike is swaddled in finest cashmere.

BONUS TIP: On the road side, locked toa loop, your bike will suffer crushing social stigma if the knittedaccessory looks too dorky. Give close consideration to whether theyhave the chops to ironically rock a “nanna sweater” beforemaking them one.

Tip 170: Start a new job.

2012-01-28T14:13:00.003+11:00

After you've filed your resignationletter, lived through those glorious last few weeks where you tell yourself repeatedly "all this will soon be over," and given your old boss a few newrules to live by on the way out the door, you will have to find a newjob.

Such are the demands of ourhow-soon-can-we-buy-the-ceo-a-new-private-jet? society.

Pick a job and apply for it, abundantwith hope the middle-management will be kindly, the email system won'tbe Lotus Notes and you'll get ball point pens that cost more than 39cents.

On your first day, get the bus. Golook at where you can park your bike. Is it secure? How will you getironed garments to your destination? Is there a locker? A shower?Will you have to see your colleagues naked? Can you shmooze your bosswhile he rubs himself with a $400 Egyptian cotton towel and you dryyourself on your socks?

Then pore over the map and choose whichway you will get there. Choose a route that looks direct and safeand commit it to memory.

BONUS TIP: You will never ride that wayagain. Every day, a crazy taxi driver, a frightening incline or acavernous pothole will make you take a different left, or an earlierright, or start the whole thing on the path along the river insteadof going down Brunswick St because goddamn it risk profiles riseinexorably with constant exposure to low-level consequences andbugger how come I always get thorns in my tyres when I ride throughthe park and why is this light-cycle so antagonisingly slow and if those school-run mums' SUVs got any biggerthey'd need Heavy Rigid licenses and high vis shirts...

After about 15 years, you'll can expectto have your route to work figured out. Of course, by then the robotswill be doing your old job at a tenth the cost, and you'll be sittingat home weeping as you nuzzle your bike's top tube for comfort.

Tip 169: Hate on gravity

2012-01-26T22:57:00.000+11:00

Humans hate gravity. They do mostanything to defy its iron law and laud those who soar highest:the Wright Brothers, Yuri Gagarin, Superman. Those caught breaking the law get hit with the full weight of planet Earth.

Road cyclists are discouraged fromseeking flight. But they can defy gravity while still keeping a fewsquare centimetres of rubber on the road.

Lean in to a turn. The straight linebetween you and the ground will be full of a whole lot of air. It may be the best feeling in all ofcycling.

BONUS TIP: Whenever you ride, you should wear a three-piece suit like Orville Wright, a cape like superman and a big bad helmet, like Yuri Gagarin.

Tip 168: Get chased by a slavering hound.

2012-01-25T22:13:00.003+11:00

Many things dogs like - such as rollingin decayed possum, sniffing other dogs genitals, and pooing in publicwith a funny little smile on their face - reveal their total absenceof aesthetic sense. So when a dog determines you worthy of the chase,you are right to feel aggrieved.

This is $450 bucks worth of Rapha,I've been working on these legs, and this haircut comes from the sameguy who styles Guy Sebastian. So take your furry little head and yourcute wet nose and piss off, you troglodyte!

BONUS TIP: With dogs, the dullards,these argument have no traction. They'll chase you with the same savagedetermination they put into tearing open a rubbish bin, making everyone who sees the pursuit wonder if you wash.

Tip 167: Wave to the crossing guard.

2012-01-25T00:27:00.000+11:00

Your ride is kind of like facebook. Youhave friends on your ride you would never have in real life. The manwith the weird moustache who is the crossing guard at the localschool gets a daily salutation. The lady sweeping the footpath infront of the medical apparatus shop gets a wave. All manner of humanflotsam that bobs along the waves of traffic gets a polite nod or ahello.

BONUS TIP: Among the flotsam, some ofthese people are drowning. The 21^st century is a shipwreckthat has disgorged gasping hordes into the cold deep infinity ofcommunity-free modern life. Grab hold of a few before they sinkbeneath the surface.

Tip 166: Answer back a drunk pedestrian.

2012-01-23T23:11:00.000+11:00

Iwould be pleased to sample some of your tasty beverage, but I'm inrather a rush just now.
Whileflattered by your error, I must advise I am not Lance Armstrong.
Iassume you are referring to the seat post, and you are quite mistaken- it finishes at the seat.
Ido have a drivers license, I just prefer not to use it.
Whileflattered by your error, I must advise I am not Kathy Watt.
Thanks,but I prefer to keep my pink bits covered up.
100psi, or 6.89475729bars.

BONUSTIP: Shout questions at drunk pedestrians. Here are some to keep emguessing:

Where is Corona made?
Who won the 1998 Tour de France?
What are the ten exotic botanicals inBombay Sapphire gin?
Who is Kathy Watt?
How many schooners in a New South Walespint?
Why don't you shut the fuck up?

Tip 165: Turn out the lights on a parked bike.

2012-01-22T23:07:00.000+11:00

When you see the flashing lights parked on the street you can continue on your way, minding your own business.

Just like all the other solipsistic fuckers that are ripping the beating empathetic heart from this town and nibbling absent-mindedly on its slippery exterior.

Or you can reach in there among the brake cables and D-Locks and spider webs, feel around for the little on-off switch and push it.

If you do take the latter course, you will be full of grandiose feelings and warm thoughts about yourself for a surprisingly long period.

Do it more than once in one block and you'll conclude you are to charity what Russel Brand is to celebrity, and consider submitting yourself for an Order of Australia in next year's Australia Day honours list.

BONUS TIP: Everyone who sees you will conclude you are one of those yucky bike-fiddlers, and consider submitting your name to the cops.

Tip 164: Front basket.

2012-01-19T23:26:00.002+11:00

For when you need to transport something aesthetically pleasing or status enhancing, they invented the front basket. Ideally suited to moving potted flowers, esp. petunias, or rather pricey bottles of Dolce d'Alba, they are a poorer choice for buying 64-packs of cheap scratchy toilet paper.BONUS TIP: Bikes are neither kangaroos nor VW beetles, in which frontal storage appears not to affect direction finding awfully. On a bicycle with a loaded front basket the direction you are going in at any moment is one you chose quite some time ago. This means before you crash, you know it's going to happen. If this seems to be happening, unburden the front basket by reaching in, uncorking the Vino and consuming. You won't save yourself, but it would be a shame to let it waste.

Tip 163: Tell someone their lights aren't working.

2012-01-18T23:06:00.000+11:00

When the cyclist in front of youdisappears in between the bright white flashes of your front light,you automatically assume they are just a cycling desperado. One ofthose strobe-lit ninja-riders enthusiastically edging ever closer to death.

But when you catch them at thetraffic signal and stand there, mentally tut-tutting in a patrician fashion, you notice there isa red flasher hanging there on their seat-post, dull and darkenedlike a 7-eleven never is.

You rustle your messenger bag, ordo a little throat clearing to get their attention, then politelyadvise re: the inert status of their light emitting diodes.

There will be an awkward pause afterthey advise that they have run out of battery. Don't tell them theyshould have charged it up. You're not their mum.

BONUS TIP: Unless in fact you are theirmum, don't reach out and check if they're lying by testing the on-offbutton. That puts your hand awfully close to their behind and thatcould get you sued, arrested, slapped, or beaten to death (depending onhow far from the legalistic cocoon of the inner city you have thischance encounter).