Westside BikeSIDE!

Last week I wrote about how I get psyched, and how we can psyche up others to ride bikes.  Sure thing, shortly after hitting publish I find something to make the post better.  One of my favorite webcomics, Dinosaur Comics, ran this strip:

This got me thinking - you can’t just start bike partying, and expect everyone is going to join you in a rock your socks off get down bike jam.  You’ve got to set the tone.  You do it by complimenting strangers, and you do it by being the most suave, engaging and charming green dinosaur on two wheels.

Sunday night Erock and I were walking to the grocery store, and we walked past a sassy looking 20-something on 2 wheels.  The conversation stopped.  “Do we know that girl?”  “I don’t thing so.”  “Well, I want to.”  “Me too.”

How do you talk to random girl on a bike, a cute one?  We foundered on this hypothetical like 6th grade boys with cracking voices and monster zits.  I mentioned that I was carrying Bikerowave cards, and that we could just ask her if she’d heard about the Bikerowave.  Yes - that’s the ticket - make up a non-sexual reason to talk to them!  “The Bikerowave Gambit” you could call it.  We agreed to try this teenage strategy as soon as possible.

The big green dinosaur upstairs gave us another chance 26 hours later, as we returned from the hills where we were scouting this weekend’s ROBOTZ ride.  Zooming along on Venice we caught a velo vixen approaching Lincoln, and then all three of us got hung up at the light.

“Howdy!”, I led with my standard country greeting, the details of the Bikerowave Gambit running through my mind.  Pretty soon Lauren, Erock and I were talking bikes and nonsense.  The Bikerowave Gambit went right out of my mind, never quite executed.  It turns out the gambit wasn’t an excuse to strike up a conversation, so much as it was a trick to help me overcome my shyness.  Of course, I made sure she left with a card.

Can you imagine if anyone who was attracted to someone started a conversation with them?  Nothing would ever get done.  The city would just be rejection, flirtation, acceptance, and sex, all day long.  Soon we’d all be buried in dirty laundry and overflowing garbage cans.

But suppose that we did that just with cyclists.  What if next time you biked alongside a girl with that wicked smile you said hello, and let it hang for a moment, a non-threatening invitation to have vocal intercourse?  Or suppose next time a boy with those tan thighs passed by, you invited him to ride you home?

Pretty soon we’d all be biking.

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