When I was the ripe old age of 18, I finally decided to try and learn how to drive. After sitting through the crushingly dull classroom segment of the driving program, it was time to get on the road.
My instructor was a young guy, all gelled hair, tight jeans and big sneakers (this was the very early 90s). In no uncertain terms he let it be known how excited he was to have a student who was a) female, b) legally allowed to drink and c) not an old Chinese lady. On my very first lesson, he took me to Boston Pizza for a beer with his weird friends and on my second lesson, he made me drive on Deerfoot Trail. I don’t think there was a third lesson.
Shortly after that, I moved from the suburbs to Mission and never really felt the need to drive. As I got older, the window for learning seemed to move farther and farther away. The longer I delayed learning, the scarier the proposition became.
The author and her bike, commuting to work.
Now, I am on the other side of 40, have two school-aged kids, and still don’t know how to drive. I have embraced urban cycling as my favorite form of transportation. And I refuse to wear silly spandex just to get into downtown.
I am a lady cyclist. Here are three things I have learned:
1. Biking in heels is easy! You only pedal with the balls of your feet anyway, and it makes the ground closer to you when you have to put your foot down when stopping in traffic.
2. Any half-way decent behaviour you may be used to receiving from ‘dudes’ flies out the window when you are on a bike. A redneck in a truck only sees the “cyclist” part of Lady Cyclist, and will have no compunction about driving aggressively around you. A lady cyclists’ reaction should be a well-manicured flipping of the bird.
3. Long skirts are not bike friendly. You do not want to be pulling fabric out of your back wheel and brake apparatus because you caught a sweet breeze and your skirts were flying behind you. Keep them knee length or shorter, but mind the peep! Bike shorts underneath will save any undie flashes.
So that was all a little tongue-in-cheek, (though all true and from my own experiences) and my close friends know I am just as likely to be wearing biker boots and a hoodie, but the message I really want to get out there is:
Anyone can bike. Anyone.
And the more of us who do, the better it will be for everyone. Now, I have shaped my lifestyle to a car-free existence. I only live 5 kms from work, and could never even imagine living somewhere that involved crossing any of this city’s big ass car-centric roadways. I know how to convince my friends to take me to Ikea. And if I was using extensive pathways and travelling 10+ K to work, I may be convinced to throw on some yoga pants (not the boot cut ones – your gears will chew them up).
So own your chosen mode of transportation. The cycle track is being built exactly for this purpose – short, downtown commutes to our places of work – so embrace them! And until the tracks are in place, own your place on the roads. In stop-and-start downtown traffic, don’t weave in and out of cars, don’t run reds, and don’t hop onto the sidewalk. Take your lane, because you have that right. And if you look great doing it…well, bonus for everyone.