Adv. 8 The Almighty Bicycle

It is not possible to go anywhere and not see a bicycle, everyone has them!!
bicycles, bicycles, bicycles, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere






I could spend all day just watching the different types of people who ride by.
There are old grannies on bicycles, wearing old grannie hats and big warm jackets, biking along in typical old grannie fashion
Old men in old men suits who meander along smoking their cigars.
boys who hoon past on fast bikes.
bikes with those baskets that you put on your handle bars, which you had when you were like 8 years old and the cute bell!!!
bikes with postman bags on the back.
bikes with small trailer type things attached to the front or back.
bikes pulling baby buggies.
bikes with a baby seat on the back (and sometimes also on the front)
girls sitting on the back being doubled by their friends.
husbands biking with wife and kids all sitting on the same bike!!
little girls standing on the back holding onto the shoulders of their mum or dad.
People riding while trying to juggle their grocery shopping, or a cell phone or even stranger things, like planks of wood...

I now have a bicycle, this is a very important device to get from one place to another. it is not a very good bicycle however. it is one that i am borrowing from my flatmate. we had to buy some new brakes for it because the cable was cut, it rattles A LOT, many things are held together by wire and masking tape. But the condition of my bicycle is not that uncommon, the bicycle doesnt appear to be a symbol of social status. there are rich people who ride around on dirt cheap bikes because it doesnt seem to matter, not the same as a car...

The bicycle gets its own path to ride on, their own set of traffic lights, alot of the time the bike has right of way over the car.
Of course generally you have to ride on the path on right side of the road which is backwards to us in NZ. but then sometimes to confuse you, you can ride on both sides of the road but make sure you are riding on the right hand side of the path...

It is crazy, there are a combination of things which make the bicycle a deadly thing, people here bike really fast, and they are really silent, (unless you have a bike like mine that squeaks each time the pedal goes round), so if you step out onto the bike path without thinking and of course are naturally inclined to look right instead of left it could end in disaster. Its not till the bike is right on you that the rider dings their little bell and YIKES you jump out of the way only to be assaulted by another bike right after it or coming the other way if its one of those tricky two way bike paths.

This is more insane than trying to navigate the streets of Rome!!!!