Bike Rides

Lunch was nice today. Something other than canteen food. A colleague and I made a quick trip to the nearest Subway to pick up sandwiches.

It has been a long time since my last bike ride. I still love them. I have never owned a bike myself…never needed to. All my boyfriends had bikes. Not that I went looking for bikers…but somehow the kind of alpha-males I hung around with would consider themselves incomplete without their bikes.

As time went on, I passed over such frivolities as boyfriends and perhaps they graduated to cars too. Somehow a car drive isn’t quite the same thing. I don’t need to elaborate on how a bike is definitely the ‘cosier’ option if your significant other is accompanying you on it. Everyone who has ever ridden a bike knows that…at least everyone who has with a boyfriend/girlfriend.

This is one place I will let the guy lead. Being a pillion rider on a bike has its own thrills. I think it gives you the closest feeling to flying. When you close your eyes, it feels like you’re flying….riding an eagle perhaps.

Today was perfect for a bike ride. A nice Mumbai winter day, not too biting, just cool enough to wear a jacket. The sun was beaming down, just warm enough to keep the wind from biting and not hot enough to sting my skin. The scarf I had tied over my head slipped in the first few seconds. Tying that perfect knot that won’t strangle you but won’t slip off either is an art form. And I have apparently forgotten it. The wind was teasing past, whipping stray strands across my face.

Bike rides are those few moments that I let myself fall into the moment and just trust implicitly. Somehow the usual reserves and barriers seem to fall away when I’m sitting on a bike seat. All these lines I have drawn over ‘colleague’ and ‘friend’ and ‘stranger’ don’t seem to matter. All there is, is a human being sharing this flight with me.

Oh yes, of course, I think a bike does do wonders for a man’s body language. Don’t ask me to explain that. It just does. There is something incredibly sexy about a man on a bike, especially when you’re the pillion rider.