At The Hipster Corral.

The sad thing about North West Tasmanian bicycle infrastructure is we have yet to link up the excellent but currently town specific shared paths. The happy thing about North West Tasmanian bicycle infrastructure is that this results in cyclist clusters at either end of each path, providing me with bicycle spotting opportunities. Especially in the case of the Wynyard path which ends (or begins, depending upon your point of view) at Bruce's*, the beachside café with bike racks and a heap of community spirit. This community spirit compelled them to have an end of summer garage sale, at which Ginger and I bought a rotary phone (Peak Hipster) and mingled our two-wheels with the sunscreened masses.

White Mixte, Red Cruiser.
The bike racks were surrounded by second hand goods.

The cruiser & us. The cruiser is apparently a Fluid brand bicycle - which, ew.
A little bit. Right?
But here is where Australians can buy them.

The red Fluid (Again, ew. Yet I've no problem with the word moist. Go figure.) was certainly eye-catching, especially with more inbuilt carrying features than your average cruiser. Just look at Ginger's blue Schwinn next-door for comparison. Not even a back rack let alone front carrying. The front basket was added by the owner but fit so perfectly I had no idea until I Googled the bicycle brand. The rear rack has no 'rat trap' but as you can see in the first picture there's a gap for attaching straps or tying something on semipermanently. A pretty perfect bike for Wynyard which is flat, has some interesting shops, a boardwalk section of shared path and plenty of beach to pose your cruiser next to.

Or which ever kind of bicycle you own.

*Since I first mentioned Bruce's last year, I have befriended the proprietors. Another wonderful thing about life in Tasmania. I still pay for cake and tea like everybody else and they have no idea I am blogging about their café.

Beach Blanket Baby (Electra Boogaloo Redux)

In the fortunately flat town of Ulverstone, the bike shop is helping to disseminate more upright bicycles into the North West of Tasmania. Walking past after closing time, I spied this Electra beach cruiser in their window:

It's the steel framed ladies Cruiser 1 in blue, priced at AU$359. Single speed, coaster/back pedal brake. I have an aversion to back-pedal brakes now that I'm a weak-kneed adult and I'd personally want more than one speed but then, I live on the side of a cliff and not beachy smooth Ulverstone. The colour is certainly a glorious match for the nearby sparkling water.

Electra Boogaloo. (The title that was inevitable)

It seems bicycle shops on the North coast of Tasmania finally realised we all live by the beach because there's been a surge in the stock of cruisers. Not only are they popping up in shops but they are actually appearing on the street, ridden by people. So far, Electra is the most noticeable brand ambassador of Cruiser Land, with Ulverstone bike shop barely able to arrange their window display before having to slap on a 'sold' sticker. I've seen some Schwinns lurking in Burnie bike shop but they don't seem to be shifting, possibly because cruisers are usually 3 gears or less and Burnie is mostly a 5 gear minimum town unlike the largely flat and bike path blessed Ulverstone. So I was surprised and pleased to see this Electra in Burnie tonight, loitering coolly outside a cool bar adjacent, cool new café due to open tomorrow morning. Cool cool cool.

Now that's one memorable ride.
Just like YOUR MOM.

Even with the handicap of night time phone photography, it's plain to see that this Electra is big on being flashy. I was forced to document it after seeing the flower print rear mudguard from quite some distance away across the street. This bike is the polar opposite of the stealth Trek bike in my last Tasmanian Cycle Chic post. This is the kind of bike that your friends would recognise as yours if they saw it parked outside a café, a bike of spontaneous socialising. A bicycle perfect for neighbourhood life because it's too striking to steal. After consulting the Electra website, it seems to be the 'Gypsy' model 3 speed ladies cruiser, although it might be an earlier incarnation as the pattern is different along the top tube. Whatever the vintage, I hope it inspires the cool new café to install some cool new bicycle racks outside so that more cool bicycles and their riders may stay awhile. That would be cool cool cool.

If You Bike It, They Will Spend?

Despite being a Bicycle Backwater, the internet ensures that it doesn't take long for trends to filter through to Australia. We've suffered the same waves of fixies and tweed rides as everyone else which is why I was surprised that it's only in the last 12 months I've started seeing bicycles in retail marketing. I'm not counting the plethora of 'put a bike on it' merchandise in home-wares stores, that's been around for as long as we've been printing squirrels and birds on cushions; I'm talking about bicycles in shop windows. In my own microcosm of Northern Tasmania I have seen three separate shop windows featuring bicycles. It may not sound like many but statistically it's astonishing. Obviously the 'young, surburban cyclist' is officially a target market but if these displays are any indication that market is firmly defined as 'leisure' rather than 'transport'. Retailers here want to capture those cycling dollars but still do not see bicycles as anything other than toys. Regardless, it pleased me to see them because it's a step in the right direction.

Here's my 'Bikes in Shop Windows' collection thus far:

I saw this pedal-free budget respray in the window of an Optician, heralding the start of spring. I wondered if it was in basic working order and waiting to be a project or if it was on its way to the local tip. Though an optician is usually a gender neutral environment this bike was clearly there to symbolise GIRLY FUN and play on images of youthful femininity while appealing to the 'retro cool' Hipsterette (hence the brightly coloured, plastic cat-eye frames). Florals! Spring sunshine! BUY GLASSES! You're already a four-eyed outcast, why not be universally hated and get on a bicycle?!

The second one is a bit hard to make out, being so draped and surrounded by branded attire. This was a clothing shop for young men and teenage boys so the inclusion of something so potentially dorky as a beach cruiser along with the Adidas is in many ways remarkable. When you break it down, though - it's another point in the 'Bikes are toys for the idle middle-classes' column. The branded clothes are firmly targeting youth with a parentally-provided clothing budget and offering the kind of bland street cred all middle-class teenagers crave. After all, what kind of male would be aimlessly riding an upright bicycle while wearing regular clothes? One who cares a lot about 'kicks' and is not yet old enough to drive, of course!

The third one is most recent and most promising for what it says about the changing perception of bicycles. This is the current window of a nation-wide clothing and 'outdoor lifestyle' brand retailer, Rivers. Rivers mostly sells casual clothing and footwear for all ages but their brand image is based around the Australian love of the outdoors so you can also buy more utilitarian clothing, backpacks, picnic blankets, wellington boots and other outdoor accessories. A huge part of their brand is about quality tested goods at accessible prices so Rivers advertising material is deliberately 'budget' in style, proclaiming they spend their money on manufacturing rather than marketing. This window display is actually a Rivers Clearance shop - a much larger and less formal set-up than their shopping centre retail presence (which is still quite informal and not costly). The most interesting thing about this bicycle is that it is actually FOR SALE. Previously I had seen a Rivers branded bike in my local WA store but it was only for display. Not to mention a hideously ugly mountain bike with gun metal grey, huge decals and a 'sliced through' suspended seat post. This bicycle looks like a genuine effort to sell, the frame appears unisex and branding is practically invisible. There's even a range of 'Hike and Bike' clothing on offer. Although only for men…sigh. Of course, Rivers is not a bicycle shop so the bike comes in bits and requires professional intervention. I don't know how much it costs or anything about the quality. It's still a shop window bicycle being positioned primarily as a 'leisure' device but it's nice to see that leisure device aimed at a wide market in a regional area.

Budget Bicycle Makeover.

When a Flower Child friend made a split second decision to buy a bike from ebay (The auction had less than a minute to go!) Ginger Man and I were excited at the thought of social bike adventures. The bicycle was an old steel beach cruiser being sold 'as is' and seemed like an okay deal for the low price. Somewhat ironically, the seller lived on the outskirts of Perth, nowhere near a beach - so Ginger and Hippie friend took a ute drive out to collect. It was almost satisfactory from a mechanical point of view (though some things wanted tightening) but on the style front it had definitely seen better days. The seat was old and split with rusted springs, there was no chain guard and it was sporting two completely different tyres. Sadly, our friend did not have money to spare on such trivial things as aesthetics. It was rideable and that was all that mattered. To everyone except Ginger, who was secretly longing for a project. Very soon after acquiring her bicycle, Hippie friend had to travel interstate and while she was gone, Ginger hatched a diabolical plan to bikenap and improve the cruiser.

The very hefty cruiser in bought condition. I'd love to know how old it is, it weighs a tonne.
Note mismatched tyres which were also pretty wrecked from going over gumnuts.

The trouble was, we didn't have much money to throw around either - having bought our own bicycles of late. Ginger prioritised basic maintenance jobs and upgrades according to what we could afford. Firstly, the handlebars were not secure; the thread holding them in place had been stripped and they would slowly collapse downwards when in motion. Thankfully, Dads of a certain age with many bits of advice and tools were available as a resource. We took the cruiser to my parent's house, on top of a hill. The driveway became an outdoor, non-literal crash-course in bicycle maintenance. My Father, relishing the challenge of the handlebars, fabricated something to secure them inside the head tube - I wish I could be more specific but I missed that part of proceedings. I can guarantee it was a slightly insane yet workable solution and with my Father, it's often better not to ask. Especially as when I walked past during the problem solving phase, I heard him wishing he had an empty aluminium soft drink can. This is a man who built his own tone generating oscillator for fun and spends his days 'improving' various household objects that are in fact doing just fine sans improvements. Ginger set to work adjusting the brakes (which had been knocked out of alignment sometime in the past) under the guidance of my Father, learning as he went. They then took turns testing them downhill. Fortunately, they worked. The bicycle returned to our house where Ginger washed and polished every part of it he could, cleaning and lubing the chain.

The cruiser actually came with these caps. A quick way to personalise your bicycle!
I found a whole page of novelty valve caps here. They average $6 a pair.

With the mechanics out of the way it was time to look at other elements. We decided that if nothing else, we should put matching tyres on it and try to find a chain guard. This seemed like an impossible task, chain guards are not generally sold separately and casually in bicycle shops. At least not in Australia. Fortunately, we knew of a likely place in bicycle workshop/retail outlet Pal & Panther. They specialise in selling reconditioned Indi 500 bicycles and offer powder coating to order along with other bits and pieces. A singularity in Roadie-saturated Perth. Though their clients are all cool suburban types chasing nostalgia, the men of Pal & Panther are the antithesis of hipster. Just a couple of guys tinkering with bikes because they enjoy it and have done so for years. Not an ironic facial hair between them. The man in charge told us he had bought the business from the original owner who had hired him in his youth. Pal & Panther also deal with motorcycles (albeit in an adjoining building with different employees), probably carrying the financial load during the bicycle deficit of the late 20th Century. As Perth boomed and the suburb transformed into hot property, the hipsters arrived, opening gourmet taco shops and boutiques around the little bike shop. Suddenly, their work was in demand. (Although I've been told they've since moved to a place with more parking, sort of ending an era.)

The cruiser was crying out for some whitewall balloon tyres so we bought some. Sadly, the Hippie-friendly hibiscus tread pattern tyres we saw online were out of reach but Pal & Panther had a set with a wavy tread pattern and whitewall balloons of any kind look great on a cruiser, with the added advantage that they cushion the bumps. They cost $36 each (Not the pair!), the most expensive item in our budget makeover. We asked if they sold chain guards, not expecting an affirmative but we were in luck! Although we were told we'd probably have trouble attaching it. Ginger figured we could rig something up with cable ties if we got desperate. The chain guard was actually quite pretty, not the utilitarian item I had expected. Certainly excellent for about $15. We ended up attaching it with silver-toned metal cable ties to match, neatly finished and filed. The prop you can see at the front actually came with the guard. Otherwise it was a neat method of attachment.

Note the groove detailing. Also shown, new tyres!

We bought one more item from Pal & Panther, a bog-standard black metal rear basket for about $25. Ugly but very functional and tough. The cruiser was old enough that the back rack was a solid metal platform with no way of attaching modern quick release baskets. The black metal one we purchased came with bolts and plates to attach it semi-permanently underneath without drilling holes. Our bike shop budget was just about blown but we still needed a new seat, a light and of course, a bell. We headed to K-Mart because we knew they had a bicycle section. There we managed to pick up a completely boring but functional Schwinn comfort saddle for $20. We also bought a bottle cage and battery powered light for approximately $4 each and a bell for about $2.

Bell, Light, Weed.

The bicycle had evolved almost as far as we could take it. Except the ugly basket was bothering me. We made one last trip to a craft shop and I dug through the bargain ribbon, picking up dollar rolls, a couple of metres of some patterned stuff, a bit of piping and even a fake flower although I had no idea what I was going to do with it. All I had was a fair idea of my Hippie friend's aesthetic and a lot of superglue. Then I sat down with the ugly (and it turned out, not entirely symmetrical) basket and started weaving and gluing and weaving some more until my fingers were crusted with adhesive. The results were so:

Terrible photography…

because at this point…

I was pretty high on superglue, to be honest.

At last, we put it all together. We bolted the basket onto the rack as far back as we could, allowing for butt-space behind the low positioned saddle (I measured with my own fat bottom to ensure clearance) and throwing the flower into it because I'm not the hippie in this equation. For a total of about $140, it was now both functional and cheerful. More importantly, our friend loved it and we went for some pleasant trips together. Without fancy tread whitewalls, we could have had tyres at half the price or less, so a budget bicycle makeover is a lot closer than you think. Something to consider if you're feeling disheartened by your own bike. It might be as simple as a set of novelty valve caps.

Desperately seeking Bicycle. (Been through the desert on a bike with no name.)

As an Official Pedestrian, making the decision to return to cycling as a mode of transport was easy. Deciding which bicycle to purchase was an eye-straining nightmare. I knew I wanted something low-tech, something 'easy' to ride, something functional. I knew I wanted one like my long lost Indi 500 but with a hint of 21st century pampering. Like gears. What I wanted was a 'Bicycle shaped' bike; but fifteen years had passed, mainstream bicycle culture in Perth had evolved enough to warrant infrastructure but it had also evolved into an alien landscape of carbon fibre speed machines ferrying a cargo of sweaty, lycra wrapped balls. One of the busiest city-bound cycle paths was near my residence so I'd personally observed the archetypal Perth commuter and it didn't look promising. Overwhelmingly they were bright green synthetic fabric covered men aged between 18 and 60, their helmets were designed to look like they were going very fast even when they were standing still, their bug-eyed sports Raybans were permanently attached to their faces and they rode hunched over their handlebars not quite kneeing themselves in the chest like only those who have never been tit-punched can. I found this Praying Mantis parade of testosterone bleak. Where were the people just riding their bicycles, not racing them? Where were the women? And children? And retirees? Where was Everybody Else and was there even a bicycle for the rest of us? (I was at this stage unaware of www.bikesfortherestofus.com)

And just when you think there can't possibly be a stock photo image for 'Praying Mantis on a bicycle'...

I had already suffered a disappointment after a bicycle shop opened right near my house. It had the word 'Bespoke' in curling font and a picture of a Penny Farthing on the sign. 'Wow!' I thought with predictable ignorance, 'They must make their own bicycles and they must not be road bikes!' Just after they opened, I excitedly peered through the window. Every wall was covered with wafer thin wheel rims and dynamic looking frames. There was carbon. There was fluoro. There were drop-bars. I was bummed out. It wasn't what I was looking for. I determined that instead of wandering around hitting up random bicycle retailers I should first Google my brains out. Immediately I ran into a problem: What was the official term for a 'Bicycle shaped' bicycle? I Googled 'Traditional bicycle' but it turned out the search engine bonanza was waiting behind the door marked 'Vintage Bicycle'. I soon learned that Vintage and Retro were now interchangeable terms and thanks to an international deficit of language (and people calling them whatever would get the most hits) my dream bicycle went by many names, each requiring their own search to get an idea of what was out there.

Cycles Bespoke - Does not contain actual Penny-Farthings.

(But does contain people who will make you an awesome road bike if that's what you wish for.)

There was Upright bike, Town bike, Loop frame bike, Dutch bike, Cruiser bike, Comfort bike, Vintage bike and Retro. Each search brought success. Even the mislabelled ones (Cruiser, Comfort). You could buy a brand spanking new 'Vintage' bicycle online but I didn't want that. I wanted to view one in person, test ride and see if it lit up my soul like I remembered. Through bicycle blogs I found the names of manufacturers, searched the companies and then if they stocked in Australia. I discovered that Melbourne was the slow bike capital of Australia, thanks to also being the Hipster capital. They were on a serious 'Vintage bike' kick. (And if you think American Hipsters are ridiculous, you haven't seen one in 45 degree heat.) As usual, Perth was behind (and 2720 kms away) but had enough local Hipsters to cause a ripple effect of fashionable things to filter across to our side of the country. By this point my eyes were bleeding but I knew I wanted a basic loop frame, steel bicycle at a relatively cheap (But not budget department store, designed to be ridden only thrice a year cheap) price, with at least 5 gears, a chain guard and mud guards. And at age 28 I would finally have a basket. Come hell or high water. In an ideal world my bicycle would also be a charming shade of blue.

Much like I imagine is inside a 'Roadie's' shorts after hunching on that razor saddle.

I found exactly what I was looking for in the 2011 model 'Jenny 7 Speed' from Schwinn. I saw it on the Schwinn website and HAD TO POSSESS IT. My fervor was such that the car-worshipping Spouse became infected. He saw a picture of a Schwinn Cruiser and wondered if it would be the gentle reintroduction to cycling that he was now craving. (We have matching rusted mountain bikes in the shed from our respective 90s follies.) It was December, almost Christmas 2010 so a lot of the 2011 models had already sold but Spouse found the Jenny by... randomly hitting up a bike shop. In a Hipster friendly area. We went there ASAP. Acutely aware that I hadn't touched a bike for over a decade and that this was not actually my bicycle, I took the Jenny for a nervous test ride on the baking hot, tarmac coated slope behind Canning Bridge Cycles. In Normal Clothes! Sandals and a dress! It was magical. I didn't fall off. I hadn't forgotten how to balance! Although I did go up an insane incline in 5th gear, much to the amusement of the Proprietor. She and her husband were excellent the whole way through. They knew we were rusty and not 'real' cyclists (...yet) but they never mocked us. There was proper seat adjustment and kind correction of any technique I had forgotten, like which side of the bike to mount from and how to officially dismount. Spouse tried out the cruiser and was hooked. He wasn't intending to buy himself a bicycle (Mine was a Christmas/Birthday present) but we discovered he could get a slightly damaged aluminium model at a discount. We put a deposit down and quickly took onanistic phone pictures to satisfy us until collection:

Schwinn Jenny 7 Speed 2011

 

Schwinn Classic Al Beach Cruiser

We were now set up to simultaneously descend into madness and revolutionise our lives. We just didn't know it.

Just a Small Town Girl: Living in a bikeless world.

Let me tell you my Bicycling Story. It began last century, with one of these:

Picture found on this blog by way of Google image search.*

Or at least something almost exactly like it. The city was Perth, Australia - Most isolated Capital city in the World with parochial attitudes to match. A car-centric city forged by the vast distances surrounding it, the sprawl of suburbs with enormous backyards to hold many a shed, the shunning of inner city living and a flimsy national identity tied to Holdens, Fords and beer. The year was 1994 and I was 12 years old. The Mountain Bike craze was an invisible dot on the horizon and I was at last tall enough to warrant an adult sized frame purchase. It would be my first 'real' bicycle and one for an important purpose - The end of primary school camp on Rottnest Island.

For those not acquainted with Rottnest, it is a small paradise off the coast of Western Australia famous for its blue swimming lagoons, bakery and complete lack of cars. The only cars on the island belong to the skeleton crew of island residents who keep things running. Nobody else can live there and everybody visiting must cycle. This trip was the mirage at the end of the primary education desert. You spent many of your school years fundraising for it, you took bicycle safety classes beforehand, you were made to pass cycling proficiency tests! Looking back, it's astonishing that an underfunded public school in a then working class area was able to offer this to students. A week without parents in an island paradise at minimal expense, being trusted not to create lawsuits with our bicycles. (Although I'm sure the Army barracks accommodation and mess-hall meals helped cut costs and I doubt our parents would have recognised a lawsuit.) In short, I needed a sturdy and reliable bike for the many hours of cycling ahead of me.

The general standard of natural beauty on Rottnest. Photo from this travel blog with basic information about the island.

My family had a small income so my parents scoured newspapers for garage sales or people selling old bikes. Old bikes were not Vintage at that time. Old bikes were simply OLD. New was still King, call it a hangover from the 1980s but despite recession there was a distinct lack of nostalgia when it came to consumer goods. My 12th birthday was at the beginning of the year, camp was at the end. All I wanted in the world was a pink bicycle. Through some kind of miraculous parental powers (I believe it's called 'Saving') my Mother and Father managed to produce one. A 1970s/80s Indi 500 bicycle. Looking very much like the one pictured above. And therein lay its downfall. It did not have the pump, cute saddle and grips as pictured but it certainly had the steel lugged frame, paintwork and decals - all immaculate. It had three entire gears, I had never known such luxury. My parents must have got it in a job lot from somebody clearing out their shed because my Mother got a different shaped, white Indi 500 with three gears, back rack and wire basket (I was desperately jealous) and my Father got a three speed blue one with rear rack. A little bit of surface rust here and there on Mum's bike. Saddles and grips a bit tired but every vehicle functional and nothing damaged. We could not afford to 'improve' them aesthetically nor did it even occur to us to do so. Thus the bicycles remained in their raw state, my Father applying his magical mechanical Dad-skills over the chains and various different brakes (between the three there was a mixture of back-pedal aka coaster-brake and caliper rim brakes) to ensure that they rode smooth.

I loved my Indi 500, I repeatedly rode it round the block. Sometimes with an off-brand portable cassette player on my hip, my one cassette pumping 'Ace of Base' through the cheap foam headphones. For the first time I cycled unsupervised up and down local suburban streets, thrilling at the feeling of being alone and in charge of myself, imprinting every neighbourhood house as I passed them again and again. I did not cycle for a reason. I cycled for joy. By the time camp was imminent I had cycled to school and passed my proficiency test with flying colours. My only memory of the test itself (apart from the hand signals and road rules we learned in the sessions leading up to it) is bicycling zig-zag through a long line of witches hats. By that stage it was a laughable challenge, I'd been riding the Indi on curbs round the block at high speed - a sort of balance beam for upright bicycle. There was a solitary student in my year who had never before ridden a bicycle but by camp she was on a bike too, although wobbly. We rode in an excited flock from one end of the island to the other and everywhere besides. I flew up and down hills, raced my friends (and enemies), triumphed when I beat an athletic boy on a brand new mountain bike with a proliferation of gears. Girls can do anything! I mentally rejoiced - even though Girl Power! hadn't been invented. Then. I can still remember his scorn when he cried, "I can't believe I just got beaten by a shitty Indi 500!" And with that, the poor Indi's fate was sealed.

How's my Father's bicycle today? Pretty good.

And my Mother? A little rusty from being rode hard and put away wet.
Don't know about her bike... ZING!

The awkward teen years were mere months away, waiting to sucker-punch my sense of identity. One day I was suddenly 13 and about to start high school when with horror I realised that my once beloved bicycle was not cool. It was old! It was pink! Only little girls like pink! All of my friends had discarded their upright bicycles seemingly overnight (but it was probably just over Christmas) and obtained shiny new MOUNTAIN BIKES! How EMBARRASSING! My older brother had possessed a mountain bike all along, he used it to do achingly cool teenage things like go places alone and see friends without asking for a lift. I had no idea of bicycle geometry or function but I was sure that if I just had a mountain bike then I could love it as I had loved the Indi 500, with the added bonus that I would have my first new bicycle and be cool. It's shameful now to revisit my discarding of the Indi. It was the shortest time I've ever owned a major purchase and the only time my parents ever permitted something so wasteful. Of course, they were not wasteful - they were sensible adults and so the mountain bike - bought from a bike shop and not a newspaper! - was partly funded by the sale of the pink Indi. It had always been the best preserved of the three but I doubt they got a lot for it because Perth was in the iron (Or should it be aluminium?) grip of THE MID-90S MOUNTAIN BIKE CRAZE.

It was a dark time. The lone bike shop in our area was full to the brim with trendy mountain bikes of all sizes and colours. (And hopefully price-points - Guilt guilt guilt.) Upright bicycles, already out of fashion even before the trend hit were now considered antiquated pieces of junk. It wasn't about buying a bike suitable for your specific needs or activities - it was all about chunky tires and straight handlebars. It was about the shape of the bike - end of story. And end of my cycling career. Within two years I had grown, my centre of gravity had changed and the mountain bike became my enemy. I hated the saddle, I couldn't ride it in the rain because water flicked up off the wheels, I felt unbalanced and it seemed to have a mind of its own. Strangely, I don't remember a single journey I took on that bike. All that remains is the feeling of regret. I put it in the shed and concluded that if this was what bicycles were supposed to be like then I was no longer fit for cycling. By then I was old enough to solo-navigate Perth's relatively comprehensive public transport system and my high school had a bus run with the cooperation of the same. Besides, I didn't need to go far. And there was nothing to do. It was Perth.

The hated mountain bike. I literally cannot give this thing away so it lingers in my shed.

Why, yes. That is the word 'RADICAL!' on a bi-coloured ellipse excreting fluoro triangles.
It couldn't be more 1990s if it was being ridden by a Ninja Turtle off a milk crate and plywood
ramp and landing on the entire cast of 'Saved By the Bell'.

My friends soon learned to drive. Just like everyone around me, it was all they'd ever wanted. Bicycles, buses and trains were to them a frustrating delay to 'real' transportation. For the shimmering promise of Freedom with a capital F. Not being able to drive was oppression of the worst order. Owning your own car was the ultimate statement of independence. We were turning 16 and my sense of identity, like so much jelly only a few years ago had been busy solidifying. I once more discovered that I enjoyed having my own opinions. An independence of mind. If it coincided with my peers, great! If not, too bad! They were my thoughts and feelings and they didn't exist without consideration - I could rationally explain them all. And my overwhelming feeling was that driving a car did not give us freedom. That it was being arbitrarily viewed as a compulsory right of passage. That just because everybody else does something was not a good enough reason to do it without first stopping to ask, "Do I actually want to do this?" So I asked myself if I wanted a car. Surprisingly, the answer was, "No."

Thanks to geography, outside of my home I was completely surrounded by car culture and I had just assumed that when I was old enough I would wake up with a hunger for automobile ownership. I was genuinely taken aback not to feel it. Of course, when I tell you that my Mother does not drive, my brother didn't drive, one Perth aunt and my maternal grandparents didn't drive it is of course less surprising but I did reach my decision independent of those circumstances. Nobody ever expressed displeasure with the concept of cars or told me not to drive. But they didn't ever speak of cars in the slightly erotic way other Australians do. They only served as real world examples of people living without driving cars. People using public transport or walking. True, they all lived in a household where there was one car and one driver so that if they did need to go a long distance with a large cargo they could but the one thing I saw and retained was the idea that it was POSSIBLE. But what of the Freedom? They didn't seem inhibited by their lack of car. My Mother still had her Indi 500. She rode it to work. There were buses and trains near our house. She took us on school holiday excursions into town, the beach, to smaller settlements outside of Perth. Every trip was still an adventure. She could still go wherever she wanted with or without us. They all could. By golly - they were free. And that's when I realised I had felt free all along. I'd never thought, 'Can't go there. Don't have a car' and so I didn't need to generate Freedom. I could only conclude that I in fact didn't ever want to drive a car, let alone go out and buy one. And more powerfully, I realised that I didn't have to.

Either this is deeply symbolic or there's nothing which can usefully illustrate the epiphany that one is a pedestrian. Not without a dangerous Google search, anyway. Everyone had those locks in 90s Perth and nobody used them because nobody wanted to steal a bicycle when they could steal a car.

I enjoyed public transport, I continued to use it throughout high school and into my tertiary studies. I was independent and I was free but I noticed that I spent an awful lot of time having to justify my 'freakish' refusal to drive a car. Sometimes to complete strangers. Once, a 30-something man selling a defensive driving course verbally abused me and insisted I must have had a horrible car accident to scare me off automobiles because I had dared to cheerfully respond, "No thanks, I don't drive!" to his offer of a pamphlet. I had never been in a car accident. Ever. Nor had my Perth family. He pressed me on it for a full ten minutes before becoming quite aggressive and demanding to know the real reason I didn't drive. Psychological problem or criminal conviction? He declared it impossible for me to genuinely have zero interest in a thing which everybody loved. He was almost hysterical by the end, invading my personal space and demanding answers. I was 18. That was the most extreme reaction. The more common ones were, "What if there's an emergency and somebody needs to get to hospital?!" (I'll call an ambulance, thanks.), "You'll change your mind!" (I might but probably not and if I ever do it will be entirely my business.), "But don't you want the Freedom of having your own car?!" (Again with the Freedom - you'd think we lived in East Germany.), "The fun of driving around with your friends while you're all teenagers?!" (Which I still got. And paid petrol money for.) "When I was your age…[insert reminiscence about getting away from parents and feeling like a grownup]" (I can still physically leave the house, I have feet.) and the classic peer pressure response of, "Everybody else does, what's wrong with you?!" And so it went until I was about 21.

By now it was the 21st century, the Human race had come down hard off it's Woo-Millennium-Age of Aquarius-Buy the World a Coke trip and had changed in inconceivable ways, life was every kind of complicated, there were wars for oil and environmental consciousness had reached even Perth's shores. Now when I revealed that I did not drive, people politely assumed some kind of disability disqualifying me from driving. I corrected them, they were confused, I calmly replied that I just never wanted to and that was usually the end of it. But every now and then, I would meet another Gen-Y who would look at me with a mixture of shock and delight before confiding in hushed tones - "I don't drive either." But none of us rode bicycles. We had a collective case of Velo-Amnesia.

All the while, Indis rusted faithfully at the back of sheds everywhere, waiting for the invention of Hipsters.

Flash forward to last year - I am 28, married and still not driving. My brother has been forced to drive (eventually getting his licence at 30 years of age) for his specific industry of choice but unless he needs the car for his job on a particular day, he just drives to the train station. He still cycles, going long distances for recreation. Most of my non-driving peers also have drivers licences but it was again an employment requirement they wouldn't need to adhere to if they didn't do those exact jobs. They still don't actively engage in car culture. I still meet non-drivers, mainly in more urban areas, though the suburbs of Perth are still spreading after a population and housing boom but with another economic downturn and the price of petrol people are returning to inner city living or taking the new train line to work (An electric commuter train goes all the way to one of the towns we used to visit on holiday). One non-driving friend decided she should probably learn to drive, bought a car and then moved to London where the concept of everybody driving everywhere is implausible and once more she is car-free, she just catches the tube. There are Australians in Melbourne who go without using cars (Melbourne is famed for a fabulous network of city trams) and public transport is now part of the city's cultural identity and 'Brand' in marketing campaigns.

I am still in car obsessed Perth, married (happily) to an ironically car culture-centric Ginger Man from a car crazed family who always have more cars parked outside a house than people resident inside but I am still not 'A Driver' and he respects that. Good cycling infrastructure exists, bike shops and even bike themed cafés abound but the scene is dominated by a small population segment of men aged 18-60 commuting in lycra as fast as they can or riding in large groups on weekends. But something wonderful strange is taking hold of me. I'm remembering bicycles are vehicles. I'm recalling my Indi 500 transporting me from one end of an island to the other. I'm remembering how lovely upright cycling was, what a mistake a mountain bike in the suburbs was. And I'm noticing online that other people seem to be thinking about bicycles being transport too. Even upright bicycles. They're talking about finding ways to get out of their cars. About the environment and petrol costs, commuting and touring and leisure cycling. About finding their old bicycles in backyard sheds and giving them some 21st century upgrades. And some of those people are even in Perth: Bicycle Backwater. And so my research began…

To GOOGLE!

*Turns out the blog is from Perth. Due to the 'small town' nature of Perth, for all I know that could actually be my former bicycle. Regardless - I hope it's being loved and that it hasn't fallen in with the wrong crowd and become a fixed gear.