emotionalmarkup

Those fit types eating carrot sticks down at the local café will tell you that cycling is far better than driving a car. A car pollutes, it’s costly to run and impossible to park in busy places.

I agree with all these sentiments and moreover, riding a bicycle to me has always been an activity I did for pleasure. A leisurely ride down to Bondi Beach or a biking tour of Brugges: these are examples of when portability and manoeuvrability trump speed and comfort.

It’s only when I’m faced with the practicalities of relying on a bicycle as my major mode of transport that I realise that biking comes with its own set of annoyances. In Barcelona I made extensive use of  bicing - a network of public bicycles with dedicated stations around the city - so the smooth running of my transportation unit and concern over its potential theft never burdened me. In London, well, I took the goddamn tube just like every other lame-o.

Yet the bicycle is part of Amsterdam’s essence: they zip in and around the streets like a ferrets in a washing basket; the canals are filled with their dumped carcasses and you’ll find at least five chained to every immovable object in the city. There is no escape.

So it was just a matter of time until my cycling-in-the-sunshine illusion was shattered. Here are a handful of these experiences that did it:

1. Immobility crisis

   This is an event triggered by the malfunction of, or removal of access to your bike. Walking or doubling is the only solution and that sucks big cojones.

2. Flat tyres

   Sure, a flat tyre. Temporary immobility crisis. It’s no biggie. Unless you get one while you’re loaded with 20 kilos of shopping 15 minutes from your house. And it’s raining.

3. Flat tyres (slight return)

   You get all the equipment necessary to change your tyre. The first time it takes a while since you’re still a n00b. Nevertheless you finish it in under two hours and then set off to enjoy the freedom of mobility once more. Pop! Psssssssst. F**k.

4. Chains and parking

   Every time you hop on or off your bike you have to wrangle with a series of chains and locks.  First you have to locate a pole or a bridge (or something that can’t be carried away by a desperate bike thief) near your drop off point. Bikes litter the city in quantities so vast that at times it’s hard to find anything to chain your best friend to. Then you have to work out where you left your keys (often in the last bar you were in) and proceed to secure your vehicle. Some people have three locks: two chains and a back ring. The high probability that your bike will be stolen is motivation enough to constantly endure this procedure however try doing it when your fingers are frozen or when you’re drunk.

   The worst is when a deranged loser chains your bike to theirs - instant immobility crisis. There’s not much to do here but to ask a junkie if you can borrow their bolt-cutters.

5. The weather

   Wet seats are a daily occurrence and hence wet arses. A shower cap usually works, but you risk looking like a ponce. Admittedly, there’s a fine line between ponciness and wet-arsity. Exiting work to see your bike covered in snow is also not uncommon. Riding in the cold, wind and rain however, is the most demonic of all punishments handed down by the cycling gods. In these conditions, you have to fight back the tears as you try to gain balance amidst erratic air-fueled beating and icy rain that fires darts of wet pain up your nostrils.

Let’s not create misunderstandings, while there are times I take being able to cycle everywhere for granted, I suffer no hallucinations that driving a car would be preferable in a city like Amsterdam - the streets are narrow and mostly one-way thoroughfares and it takes longer to find a centrally-located park than it does to drive to Berlin (it’d be probably cheaper to drive to Germany and park there instead). Nevertheless, I admit it was a steep learning curve and I’m still a long way from becoming a battle-hardened, two-wheel prince of fury.

I still love my bike (his name is Rupert). Despite his flaws, he has stuck with me thus far and furthermore, he keeps me relatively fit. Cough. Cough.

I don’t make a show of complaining about the cold but when I make even the most pithy remark it’s met with derision. It’s hard being surrounded by a complete miscomprehension of what it’s like to come from a place where it doesn’t get below 15 degrees celsius.

So I moved to Amsterdam a week ago. I’m already mobile and there’s a chill in the air.

Like the peculiar Dutch language with its confusing syntax and overly-ambitious chaining of guttural sounds, Amsterdam beguiles me. I marvel at the city’s horseshoe streets and the baffling harmony between people, trams, cars and bikes. My head shakes at the consistency of human height.

The city hides its secrets well. Not like in Sydney, which gets her clothes off quicker than a stripper after a boob job. Even close to the centre, where I am, there’s a strange and pregnant silence. Like when a cat gives birth. I wonder if something is happening right under my nose. Something that I’m supposed to find. A salmonella-laced croquet from Febos for example.

How shall I discover Amsterdam? Shall I scour its backstreets? Follow dimly lit canals, losing my way as is typical of me, even when carrying a hand-drawn map? Yes. I think getting lost is the best way to learn local geography.

In the streets, confident, well-dressed Dutch people flow past me in a tightly packed hoard of bicycles as I struggle with a chain that is heavier and more expensive than the bike I’m riding. They look upon me with those judging, fair eyes that kill in me the will to spit in their perfectly groomed hair. They ride away. I wonder where they are going. Clearly to a modern city apartment, filled with other handsome and smiling people eating fresh bread, smoking and drinking delicious wine. Very gezellig. I make a mental note to penetrate their secret society and dismantle it from within.

Meanwhile the sun chases the horizon down as if it has been bit on the arse by a black hole. The days are dark my friends and the clouds look grim. I wake in the mornings wondering if my watch stopped at 8pm the previous evening or if there’s been a total eclipse of all light in the universe. That a plague of giant black locusts descends over the city each morning is a possibility that hasn’t escaped me. People use the word midday but I’m sure they’d have no idea of what or when it is if they didn’t wear watches.

The lowlands deserve a chance however and I’m looking forward to unearthing every morsel and devouring it. As a dog would a dead rabbit. Preferably with tablespoons of mayonnaise.