Most of us know people who “could never bike downtown” because they “hear about people getting crushed under trucks” and a gaggle of other ideas with varying degrees of legitimacy.
The state of public transit and parking opportunities invariably play a factor as well. It’s time to counter such roadside dementia with the magnanimous power of cold hard indisputability. These are the top eight reasons to bike downtown.
8. Hotties
Pedestrians eye anything that moves, so no matter your current appearance, hotties will look at you, and you’ll look back at them, and you’ll both feel attractive (even if you’ve just pressed up a hill mid-June to the point where your face says you’re two kids away from birthing triplets and the first one just flipped you off).
7. Delicious Animosity
You get to join in on all the hating. You will hate cars and pedestrians, they will both hate you and they will both hate each other.
All of you will join in a special hatred for longboarders and skateboarders, rollerbladers and especially those people with a sideways wheel on either foot who have to belly dance for momentum.
6. Rad Bike Dudes
If it’s nice, rad dudes who know about bikes will approach you with a stubbly smile and compliment your wheels. If not, drunk dudes who know about bikes will approach you with a baseball cap and go on about how big and round their wheels are, how massive their chassis is and how your knew tape job is liable to get your bike stolen.
Either way, you’re in for a good conversation.
5. Healthy Animosity
You will even hate other cyclists. That feel when they pull up next to you in the lane just cuz there’s enough space, look you in the eye and then pull ahead in order to stay the same speed you were going?
You’ll think you’re Tom Waits just quitting booze. Not to be missed.
4. The Taste
The mouthfuls of hot exhaust allow for precious little breathing room. Pretty soon every gas-run vehicle is a beautiful memento mori, and your city experience develops into a sickly El Greco. How awesome is that?
This also means that anything electric becomes a god-send. These are streetcars, electric cars, and so on. In the current world, it’s always a point in your favour to have a healthy appreciation for gas-free motors.
3. Enlightening Animosity
In spite of this, you may get to hate e-bikes as well. There is nothing more perplexing than having to slow down on a bicycle for someone sitting down on an electric scooter. You will promptly enjoy the cultural well-roundedness of having a keen distaste for things you generally praise.
Not to mention ambivalence and hopeless consternation are great things to stir the wiles of the existential mind. And everyone who’s anyone in the city must be well-versed in the dissonant tedium that is daily existence.
2. Straddling Death
Ok, so you might narrowly dodge an early grave every so often. But only once in a full moon. And come on, having your finger on the pulse of the hot struggle of the masses, dodging strollers and crossing guards and skimming your shoulders against a speeding semi all on the course to get some groceries? Talk about appeal.
Acquainting yourself with the Hobbesian state of nature just may make it feel like you actually did go hunting for that supermarket steak.
1. Getting to Buy a New One Every Spring
So you come outside to see one of the posts on your porch axed off and your bike gone. You park your wheels in the wrong spot and your lock’s been clean removed and there goes your piece. You ask your friend to watch your cycle while you go in and grab a coffee and he’s off to the next town to sell it for parts.
All of a sudden a huge mural’s been painted commemorating the guy whose got everyone’s bikes and he’s a local hero. But hey, you get a spankin’ new 80-dollar ride to show off every single year and ain’t nobody tellin’ you different.
