Slow cyclist

I had a great time on Ride to Work day. It was really easy to get a blue Melbourne bike — in fact, it turned out to be free on Ride to Work day. As I was riding, people along Bourke Street called out to me.

‘Hello cyclist! Do you want free breakfast?’ They pointed to a neat pile of brown paper bags in front of their cafe.

‘Hello! No thank you. I’m going to my company’s free breakfast,’ I said as I slowly wheeled by (it’s uphill coming up to Parliament House).

Free breakfast is one of the rewards of Ride to Work Day.

Now I’ve signed up for a one year subscription. It’s $50 and I get to ride the bikes for free for the first 45 minutes of each trip, which is longer than the standard 30 minutes. I have a blue stick that I put in the bike stand, then I can get whatever bike I want.

I rode to work today. The trickiest bit is Swanston Street. I had thought that Swanston Street would be the easiest — it has lots of cyclists and is closed to private cars during the day. However, this morning I found myself trying to squeeze between a parked truck, a street sweeper and a tram. The other cyclists seemed to be able to do it but I was too scared. Luckily, whenever I feel unsure about something, I can just hop off and wheel my bike on the wide pavements of Melbourne.

Here I am with the official Melbourne bike helmet. There were a whole row of bikes with helments attached so I took one of them.

Preparing to ride to work
Preparing to ride to work

As you can see, I don’t need to wear any special riding gear, just my work clothes. My commute takes 15-20 minutes for around three kilometres. I am a very slow cyclist. Every bike overtakes me. But that’s okay. I am obviously a baby bikist, with my clunky public blue bike, upright sitting position and impractical clothing. I don’t feel embarrassed about slowing the cycle lane down.

And look what I spotted! This is the second time that I’ve seen this mysterious yellow bike. I wonder why it’s yellow?

Mystery yellow Melbourne bike
Mystery yellow Melbourne bike

Are Melbourne Bikes taking off?

We’ve spent the last six months renovating and moving into our new home in inner Melbourne. I’ve been looking forward to returning to city life and riding a bike to work.

In fact, I’ve been planning to join the Melbourne Bike Share scheme. In London, I looked enviously at the thousands of people riding the Boris bikes. It had just opened up for casual use as I left London for Melbourne so I never got the chance to try it out.

I felt sad that Melbourne bike share has not been as successful so far. Most people think the reason for the low rental rates is because helmets are compulsory. I don’t think this could be the root cause. Most of the London users are regular commuters who can get helmets, rather than casual impulse riders.

More basic reasons are probably how safe our streets feel for cyclists and perhaps the limited coverage of the scheme (mainly Melbourne CBD), which is already well served by trams. Damjan, whose work is slightly outside the very centre of Melbourne, would have to ride my folding bike because there are no blue bike stands near his office.

I hope that the Melbourne bikes will slowly take off. Today I actually saw four Melbourne cycles in my 20 minute morning commute to work. This is a bit of a record for me. Admittedly, two of them were being ridden illegally — one without a helmet, the other on the footpath.

If I had a hand in introducing the bikes to Melbourne, I would have done two extra things to speed up the uptake of the bikes. I would have launched the scheme in late spring or summer — why on earth did they start of in the cold and wet of winter? The UK was a bit smart in introducing their indoor smoking ban in summer to minimise the shock of going outside to smoke.

I would have also given away access or paid lots of people to ride around and generate some interest and buzz. My guess is that if people see other people riding around and if using those bikes seemed normal, then more people would try it out. Instead, it became normal to see full racks of unused bikes, just like it has become normal (common wisdom) that ‘Myki sucks‘ (it’s actually a very useable system, which had well publicised teething problems).

I have registered for Ride to Work day. Next Wednesday I make my first epic 13 minute journey from home to work on a Melbourne bike. I have already scoped out the route. There is only one lane change that I’m worried about but I hope that a mass of cyclists on Wednesday will protect me.

Snake on a road!

I’ve been working on a construction site. As we were driving yesterday, we were stopped in our tracks by an eastern brown snake. It was big — about five foot, or as long as I am tall. It fat, as thick as my wrist.

It was also deadly. The eastern brown snake is the ‘second most toxic land snake in the world’, according to Wikipedia.

We got out of the 4WD to take photos. The snake looked at us for a while, then darted very fast into the grass next to the road. It was beautiful and wriggly.

Sunbathing on the road -- snake
Sunbathing on the road -- snake
We use the zoom lens -- these things move fast!
We use the zoom lens -- these things move fast!
Ah, look at its beady eyes
Ah, look at its beady eyes

Fine print

The convenience store 7-Eleven has a series of posters featuring a range of Slurpee flavours.

Lime Pear Slurpees
Lime Pear Slurpees

The fine print says: ‘Fruit image shown is illustrative of flavour only and not an ingredient of the product.’

I wonder if the lawyers told them to do that.

Wanted: Live Toadfish

Someone put this poster up next to the tram stop.

Wanted: Live Toadfish
Wanted: Live Toadfish

Small, live toadfish wanted.
Can be found by any diligent fisherman.
Please call (…. … …) for reward and delivery/pickup of toadfish.
Reward $70

Yes, I’m

And it’s ripped off so we can’t see the end of that sentence.

Brand disloyalty

‘Hey Joan, let’s go to into YD,’ my brother said. ‘They usually have good casual shirts.’

Jason and I browsed a while and found a purple shirt and a blue-green shirt that I liked.

At the sales counter, the lady packaged Jason’s new shirts and took his card.

One of the other store assistants was hanging around. ‘So the XS was the right size?’ he said.

‘Yeah, the XXS is too small. I knew that XS would be right,’ Jason said.

‘Well, those shirts are great colours.’ He switched tack. ‘Hey, I like your jeans. What brand are they?’

‘They’re Nobody jeans,’ Jason replied. ‘Kind of hard to get in the store.’

‘Yeah, they look good,’ the store assistant said. ‘I have to wear YD jeans and sometimes I get sick of it… Although they’re really good!’ he added quickly.

Change and advice

I was second in the queue to pick up my photos from the Kmart photo lab.

A young man was making pleasant conversation as he packaged up the lady’s wedding photos.

‘There you go,’ he said and handed over the photos and the receipt.

‘Great, thanks, bye,’ said the lady. I stepped forward as she turned away. She had gotten five metres away when the young Kmart employee called her back.

‘Excuse me! I forgot to give you change.’

He took the a five cent coin out of the cash register and pushed it across the counter to her.

‘Don’t spend it all at once,’ he advised her gravely.