Get your rocks-off!...NY is simply [bike] pornographic

I've already confessed to fetishising bikes so finding NYC absolutely titillating will come as no surprise.

Mayor Bloomberg's award-winning work has made the five boroughs easy for cyclists , (I assume for the fact that one would need to be rich/mad/ostensibly patient to even consider driving) which means that NY is now awash with bicycles.

A bike is moored to a post every few metres. Each has its unique character: some are bawdy and over the top, others technological perversities; there are elegant fixies, and sissy bars and banana saddles galore.

Beyond simply painting the tarmac green and hoping for the best, the City has constructed dedicated bike lanes that isolate cyclists from other traffic. It means the chances of being run off the road by an angry bus or cab are lower and cyclists are guarded from surprise 'clothesline-style' dismounts (opening-car doors frighten the hell out of me).

Glorious pedestrian-free lanes that safely deliver over bridges, maps, bike fashion parades, guitar-shaped bike racks, bike clubs, big signs, greenways - not just being utilised by the slightly mad and fit, but by Nannas, business people, students, littler kids. Almost everybody in NYC is riding a bike - hallelujah!

[This said, the fact that I saw at most two people wearing stack hats was a little worrying, the whole ' I don't have to wear a helmet - you can make me' ethos must be firmly entrenched in the Bill of Rights...somewhere.]

Sydney could have all this and more. And while progress is being made, it is excruciatingly slow. People are still not confident enough to commute, when it comes to creating bike infrastructure it absolutely must be case of 'build it and they will come'.

We all know that bikes can save the world - obesity, peak oil, emissions, mental health etc. etc. - yet there is still widespread resistance. Silly duffers on Burke street protesting because they'll lose their car spot and obstructionist 'can't-do, won't-do' attitudes from unimaginative councillors means that rather than burgeoning into a progressive cosmopolitan city, Sydney will inevitably be known as a dirty, congested cesspit of a city. Particularly as the population swells in numbers (and size - yes, I mean fatter).

It's a calamity. But not hopeless. Doing your bit is easy.

1. Get your rocks-off with bike porn for a little inspiration - I will upload the best of mine and there is more here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=126567&id=630785807

2. Get on yer' bike (especially all those duffers spending thousands of dollars on 'Boot-Camp' every morning - if you just rode to work your bum would be hard within weeks, you'd get to sleep in, save money and not undergo ritual public humiliation)

3. Have a whinge

Enjoy. And sincere apologies to my NY colleagues, pausing every few metres while I took pictures of bikes must have been really, really annoying - but you'll be 'right ;)

Aggie D & why bike fetishes get you in trouble

When you look at this picture, what do you see? Aggie D, eyes a'blazing, thin arms gripping to the handles...Or maybe the bloke in khaki shorts and a preppy blazer, rejected from something that is undoubtedly fabulous but requires hair covered below the knee?

If you fetishise bikes, the US$13,000 Electra pushie is the undoubtedly the focal point. So shiny, such wide handle bars, handle bars grips....hmmmnnn...E-Lectr-aaaaH

The Electra Amsterdam is a beautiful, beautiful bike, which i doubt I'll ever afford. And as a lady that velocommutes every day: smacking taxis on the boot for pulling-out too quick; abusing taxis for cutting me off to pick someone up from the bus lane; putting a helmet on my head that has just been dropped into a Sydney storm water drain; fighting gravity with heavy bike bags; rocking-up to meetings 'glowing' and asserting for the upteenth time that 'drink-driving laws only apply to car drivers - I can't help myself, I have a pushie fetish. 

And it sometimes gets me into trouble. 

Like two days ago:

I was in Surry Hills, where noticeably of late,  a bunch of spunky young men have  taken to wearing tight pedal pushers, shoes without socks and billlowing shirts while riding fixed-wheel bikes very quickly down Foveaux street. Anyway, anyway...Along comes one with lime green rims set off by white road tyres, a taught frame and incredible curves - I could not take my eyes of it. I even followed this bike (while I could, Mary Jane the commuter gets sluggish at times) for a spell. Until I realised that its rider thought I was checking him out. 

Sure he was cute, but I was checking out the bike! Because I fetishise bikes. 

And then on Castlereagh St on the corner of Bathurst; casually leaning against a pole - sunlight hitting the chrome, hints of colour shimmering from under the seat and red rims, an Angel of a bike. I imagined what it would be like to ride it: shock absorbed, light and intuitive over the bumps, a bell like the sound of 3.30pm...All the while the light had turned green and the council truck behind toots and  pre-coffee barbarians scream "C'mon Love...Ya need a push up the hill do ya?"

Because I fetishise bikes, I stop still in the street when I see a pretty bike only for its owner to come along either super suss that I'm trying to pinch it - or thinking that because I think his bike is hot - we should probably sleep together. 

And I fetishise ugly bikes too...as long as they have cool sticker art. 

When I go City Bike Depot, the bikes must feel like European backpackers working behind the bar in Mt Isa on a Friday night. I feel terrible too, specially since it was pointed out that Mary Jane (my bike) is probably getting very jealous. 

I fetishise bikes, maybe that's why ol' MJ keeps giving me flat tyres?