Do Me a Favour – Go Burn Your Face in an Espresso Machine

Over the last few months I’ve started wonkily riding my new-ish bike to work. My other half, Adam, is quite the bike-geek so he’s gleefully pointed out my many errors along the way. First, I was advised that I was changing gears incorrectly (makes sense, seeing as it sounded like Kyle Sandilands heftily jumping up and down on a typewriter whenever I attempted to shift gears).

Later, it eventuated I’d been riding with a flat tyre for some time. At least I could put this down to a mechanical failure and not my own fitness.

My latest problem is quite unique. After pedaling any random distance up to 3km, my bike seat plummets to the lowest possible height. This has quite the dual comic effect – not only my body phsyically plumetting towards the ground; but also the look of terror on my face as I replay a childhood incident in my head, where I rode over a jump and landed on the frame instead of the seat. My testes still shrink in fright at that memory.

This was all quite the laugh at first, but stopping every few hundred metres to adjust my seat becomes tiresome. The end result is that I have been riding my bike to work with my knees wildly flying up and down like over-lubricated pistons, flying dangerously close to my chin. There is no elegance in this position, let me assure you.

I’ve also been getting fairly odd looks when I’m coasting – when I’m not pedalling, my legs-askew stance appears as if I’m attempting some sort of stunt in which I assume a sexual position rarely seen outside of adult movies, albeit on wheels.

This has lead to whining and pleading with Adam to take a look at my bike frame’s seat thingo. If you have actual advice on how to fix the fucking thing I’d be most gracious. Pedaling to work spreadeagled is causing my shins to wilt in agony.

There are worse things that could happen in the world of cycle-commuting, of course. Here in Melbourne, we’ve got a handy network of trams splattered all over the city. For cyclists (god, I hate calling myself a cyclist, I sound like a lycra-clad twat – believe me, it’s only dodgy old metal tshirts and baggy shorts when I ride) tram tracks can be quite the obstacle. Think about it – if you ride over an embedded tram track the wrong way, your wheel can easily become lodged, forcing you to come to a painful, albeit comedic, standstill.

This has long been a personal fear of mine, but it was recently cancelled out by a rule I firmly believe in: if you’re fearing something painful, and witness it happening to someone else with your own eyes: you’re safe. So it’s with great pleasure that I can report I saw a lady take an unfortunate tumble by riding directly into a tram track; but hey, at least it won’t happen to me now!

There’s a few other “won’t happen to me if someone else does it first” hurty situations I’m waiting to tick off my list, namely:

• having an espresso machine angrily hiss steam into my face and causing third degree burns
• a manhole inexplicably opening up as I step on it, as if I’m traversing a real-life platform game
• imploding when I shave my face (I read this is just as likely to happen as the Large Hadron Collider generating a black hole, so there must be SOME control case of shave-imploding they’re measuring this against)
• slipping on a treadmill and transforming it into a conveyor belt offloading injured humans (actually, I’ve recently witnessed this happening to someone else, and it was hilarious. I saw teeth flying and all!)

I’m sure you have some of your own… share in comments?

Tagged as: Fitness, Pain