Bigger, Backer, Biking-er?

🎶RETURN OF THE BACK(side)

once again

RETURN OF THE BACK(side)

bottom of the world🎶

I was gone so long, emojis became a thing. And because I am forever your Cool Aunty who can name three out of four of the kids who used to be in 1 Direction, I am using them to herald my return to the bicycle blogosphere. It's been a while. Through illness and bicycle unfriendly geography I grew estranged from my wheels. But a move to a less mountainous area of Tasmania, one with shared paths (!) awakened the need. The need for transportation cycling speed. That's approximately 9km a mother-effing hour, baby.

This need also coincided with the month of April, which is 30 Days of Biking month. I couldn't think of a better way to get back into Bicycle Land than forced goal setting and hashtags, so without further ado, here's Part 1 of my glorious return to bicycling, shamelessly backdated:

April 1st - Hello. It's me.
Day one started off rough because there was a gin festival near our new house, and it turns out that those tiny little sample shots will take you down when you have 10 in a row. So I had to sober up before we could get on our bicycles for the first time in years.
P.S. I have Snapchat now because what kind of Cool Aunty would I be if I didn't have a way to broadcast my day drinking BUT WITH A FLOWER CROWN FILTER?

Before Gin Festival / After Gin Festival

By nightfall, Ginger and I were ready to roll on the salubrious shared path infrastructure of Devonport, Tasmania. Our new home and also the home of The Spirit of Tasmania ferry.

Filled with foolhardy enthusiasm, we bicycled to Devonport Bluff and back, never once considering the consequences for our car-seat-softened undercarriages.

Spoiler: I felt it.

It was so good to be back, I don't even have a self deprecating thing to say about it. Bicycling is fucking fun. We threw ourselves into dutifully hashtagging the first quarter of the month, bicycling around the block, to the shops, to appointments, to dinner (where we saw some weird shit), and to a great community market event at Hill Street Grocer where the bike racks were blocked so we couldn't park properly but we got to eat a hotdog in a carpark while a jazz band played. Yes, hipsterism has finally reached Devonport and brought with it a late night dessert bar, a gin distillery, a boutique beer bar that sells alcoholic ginger beer and has espresso martinis on tap, and a grocery so fancy that you can buy a $30 German made dish brush while you wait for your professionally arranged flowers to be decoratively wrapped.

Despite all my rage, I am still just Sous Vide in a cage.

Antidote.  The new late night dessert bar.

We were fatter of bottom and compromised of fitness, but dammit we were back, ready to ride into a bicycle heavy future on flatter land. Welcome to Devonport!

I'm On A Boat...cycle!

I've noticed distinct patterns emerging in my wardrobe since I returned to bicycles. The most obvious being a sharp decrease in non stretch pants and corresponding increase in dresses for the freedom of movement they provide. (I said as much in my little bit of The Girls' Bicycle Handbook.) But another, quite literal pattern has been woven through this shift: A complete mania for stripes. Partly it's due to a proliferation of stripes in the shops but my stripes love has been building for some time, the increased availability has merely allowed me to target my obsession almost exclusively on navy blue and white horizontal, as though I were permanently about to board a yacht. Blame suddenly living by the sea, blame the fact my 'best for summer biking' dress back in Perth was navy blue and white stretch cotton, blame my willing adherence to fashion. Blame what ever you like but something about stripes on a bike (Or on foot) makes me happy to be alive.

Bike Stripes Genesis in Perth.
Stretch 'T-Shirt' material dress from Target, perfect for sweaty, West Australian summers.

I'm not a summertime fan but there's something of an endless summer feeling in navy stripes that I can still appreciate. Less of the sweat, swimsuits and sunburn, more of the blessed hour when the Perth sun finally relented and you could collapse into an outdoor chair with an iced drink, sea breeze and good friends around you. Plus it just makes me feel jaunty.

Bike Stripes in Tasmania.
Heavier cotton because sweat doesn't really happen in the summer here.

Unwilling to let go of the feeling, I've now collected enough navy and white stripes to undertake one of those Capsule Wardrobe Projects and seasonally whittle my attire down to a core of striped items and things that go with stripes. Of course the majority of outfits have to be suitably 'bikeable'. The great thing about Autumn/Winter in Tasmania is that all I really have to do is add tights and some outerwear to all my Spring/Summer outfits.

Not that this fact prevented me from buying a third navy and white striped dress.

When I combine stripes with the polka-dotted Nutcase helmet, I feel like I'm radiating happiness everywhere I ride. I also feel a lot more visible in all weathers. I'll be quite sad when stripes disappear from the fashion landscape.