The Bike Life..
Since my little girl was born, I’ve not had as much opportunity to get on my bikes in a way that used to be pretty ordinary for me, but I had a chance on Friday night. The family were settled in and I had a date with some top notch ramen and the flicks.
The inclement weather almost kept me at home, but I was admonished to “Man-up, ladybird, and put your poncho on”, which I duly did and cruised into town.
I’ve got to look into finding more stock of quality rain capes, cos teamed with my guards, Schmidt, Skully’s and PDW taillight, I was warm, dry and well illuminated all the way. (I didn’t learn my lesson though, and got caught cape-less on guard-less bike in a bucketing on Sunday evening – luckily I was able to seek shelter in The Concordia Club and get lubricated enough that I didn’t mind the rain on the way home).
Regardless of the weather, the incident that prompted this post was still to come. After a stellar bowl of noodles, I was caught short looking for a place to secure my bike outside the Hoyts on George St, and chose a dubious looking set of bannisters to lock up to. Just as I walked away, a security guard came barrelling up with the standard “Hey mate, you can’t lock your bike there!”, to which I replied, with just a touch of implied snarkiness, “Well where’s a good spot around here for me to leave it?”.
I was ready for a casual dismissal of my problem, so when the reply was “Well, if you’re here to see a movie, I guess I could chuck it in the loading dock for you”, I was totally floored. I followed the guard down some flights of stairs and through a fire exit, and locked my bike to a exposed water pipe, with the reassurance that “It’ll be fine here, no-one ever comes down, give me a call when your movie finishes and I’ll make sure you can get out okay”.
Suffice it to say that Gumshara Ramen is the best in Sydney, you gotta go see Inception, and I had a great midnight ride home to Marrickville through rain-slick back streets and alleyways.
I wanted to write this for the blog, cos the debate about bike lanes and cycling in the city is never gonna make everyone happy. But when instead of telling you to “Fuck off buddy, I don’t care where you put your bike”, you get an almost valet-like service from a Hoyts security guard, it certainly makes me feel that Sydney is ever so slowly becoming a city that makes it easier to live the bike life.
Comment on this post | 1 Comment
