This is the song I would like for you to be hearing when you read this post. Away you go.
Remember when Nicole had crazy good hair? Well, I do – not first time around, because I was four when I watched BMX Bandits for the first time, but the second time, I certainly did. She reminds me of what is good about Australia. Incompetent police. Water slides. Walkie Talkies. Oh, and the ballade of the bush.
Okay, even I don’t know where I’m going with this. Because really, I’m not going anywhere, but for some damn fool reason, I have been thinking about the bandits all day long.
Something to do with the fact I went for a ride with this Emma lass. Like most regular, sane people, she is probably mortified by just about everything I am about to write here. Because most regular, sane people have the good sense to know that the blogosphere is a silly place.
Emma ticks several of my boxes: matching (helmet to backpack; tape to rims; jersey to undertone of eyes); being nice; smiling at strangers; not 100% weirded out by me and my silly talkie talkie crap. Oh, and she likes bikes. See that. Boxes ticked.
She also gave me cause to consider two similar words recently – undertone versus undertow. Being the kind of dorky kid whose parents made her play chess and table tennis, rather than useful, socially acceptable sports that come with their own half time entertainment, I used to love reading the dictionary. And a few years ago, I used to write short stories all based around simple, silly words – hammer, water, luxurious, caffeine. I have never written one about ice chocolate with ice, not ice cream. But there is always a chance.
Given another chance, I could cobble together some slightly creepy, slightly funny ways to draw the story in about Emma. Something about country girl does good in big(ish) city (about which I feel more enamoured each day). Something about Canada, the need to find a hill and get down in, no matter the weather. In the winter, you make it snow, in the summer, you make it bikes. But somehow, you go to Canada and it makes you want to get on a hill. I am not above pushing an extended, spurious and kind of wrongtown analogy (like how Emma is Cirque Du Soleil meets marshalling meets Nicole Kidman meets your cubicle nightmare), but I won’t right now.
Because Emma has reminded me of something much more important: it is very nice to go riding with someone nice in the early morning. Lazy Jerk, longtime compadre, or accidental accompaniment – it is very nice to go riding with someone in the morning.
Riding by yourself is also beautiful and meditative and sometimes calming and precious. You can nod at the passing roadies, or you can pass all the riding noddies. You are your own companion.
But riding with someone is also lovely. You can observe the cadence of their legs and mark and not mark it against your own. You can appreciate their handsignals and the occasional tourist guide level helpfulness. You get a feeling that they are good people, though you’re highly predisposed to people who ride bikes anyways, but that is much nicer than getting a bad feeling from someone, which is really sad making and heavy boots giving.
You may not get to know them very well, because they are not good at twenty questions and you are talking crap anyway and that is about 10% of your personality and about 10% of theirs anyway. And you know it’s impossible to understand someone in 15kms, and if it was, then we’d put everyone on a bike and toodle them round the river and there would be no wars, no misunderstandings and no mean people. You were not intending for it to be anything but a nice ride with a veritable stranger. But they are being kind enough to share the ride with you and you are being hopeful enough to share the ride with them.
You had a nice time, you hope they had a nice time. You’d like to do it again sometime.
No pressure.
You just mean, you ticked the box “available for long rides, short rides and possible silly in-betweens”.
Wow. Just like internet dating.
eleanor j jackson 
