Freewheelin' in Montréal

My mother in law recently gave me her bicycle, which she hadn’t used in years (Merci belle-maman!). The last time I rode a bike was in 1994. Bo has been excited for me to get a bicycle so I can join him on little journeys without the wear and tear on my joints of hiking and even walking around in the city. (Years and years of volleyball and other factors have made me somewhat suddenly “weak in the knees”).

The day after we got it Bo suggested a ride to a “nearby” shopping mall. “It’s only 45 minutes by bike.” 45 MINUTES! I told him he was crazy. I hadn’t even straddled a bike in 13 years and he thought I was just going to be able to hop on for a little jaunt of three-quarters of an hour through the city! I did take the bike to a local asphalt schoolyard and tooled around a bit to get my bearings. The seat needs some adjustments and perhaps replacement, but it turns out that riding a bike after 13 years is well, just like riding a bike!

I’m not overly enthusiastic about riding my bike on the city streets. I’m still getting used to walking the city streets and I see some crazy stuff out there where the cars and bicycles are sharing the road. And I don’t intend to ride my bike on the sidewalk unless I see an extreme need. Bo’s parents also gave us a bike rack for my car, so I’m much more inclined (once the seat situation is resolved), to take the bike to different parks where there are long flat trails shared by bicycles, non-motorized people (and dogs…). The Parc Maisonneuve is not too far from where we live and along the shores of the St. Lawrence River, there are many such parks to explore.

This brings me to the question of cycling attire. The bike Bo’s mom passed on to me is a “women’s bike,” meaning of course that it lacks the highest bar that crosses horizontally on a men’s frame. Seeing it made us wonder why we need two different styles of bike in this day and age and wouldn’t it be simpler to just make one kind of universal frame? Well of course, the missing bar was to accommodate women in skirts right?

Next question…why would a woman today ride a bike in a skirt? Well they do! Everywhere! Women in short, medium, long, flowing, tight and loose skirts are riding bikes all over the city of Montréal. I suppose the long flowing hippy granola bike-riding women are fine. But the short skirts and dresses I see make me scratch my head and go “hmmm?” Of course I never point them out to Bo because I don’t want him to start noticing!

Same goes for the low cut shirts. Now, I've always been sort of modest when it comes to my fashion choices, but when did bicycle-riding women become so provocative? I see cleavage galore on these women and sometimes on other more athletically dressed women who apparently never took the time to stand in front of a mirror and ask themselves “wait, when I lean forward on my bike, am I hanging out of this top?”

So when you see a blond ponytail sticking out of a shiny new red bicycle helmet on a sweatpants-and-turtleneck-wearing woman who is wobbling warily in the bike lane, that’ll be me. You can wave hello, but I may be too freaked-out nervous to notice you, sorry.