This year marks my sixth year scooting about this planet on a kickbike.
And they have been six very happy years.
This scooter has given me not one moment of trouble and we have had many adventures together.
In fact, like the coppers in Flan O'Brien's dark comedy, The Third Policeman I'm beginning to turn into my ride:
“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles...when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.” ― Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman
Yesiree happy days indeed.
I also own the smaller wheeled, Mibo Folding scooter which I portage on public transport and use for forays across suburban Brisbane. But about my township more or less every day I'm pushing my kickbike about.
I'm known for it.
On a kickbike you stand out. Kickbikes give you street cred.
It frustrates me that the road into my patch is not bike friendly so I tend to be contained by geography to routes no longer than 14 km. But on a kickbike you are not held hostage to distance because you can easily exert yourself by pushing harder. That way, short distances seem longer.
Nowadays kickbiking for me isn't about the exercise. I scoot because I love to scoot. My morning rides thrill me. Out and about is always fun. As I've said before you can enter a sort of zenhood scootering like this.
No bicycle ever gave me that sort of feedback.
Mine is also a utility vehicle. It's my shopping trolley. My mule. I carry everything from groceries to seaweed to firewood to junk mail on it.
En route my body has changed. Tight buns. Firm, well developed ankles. My gluteals are as honed and as strong as an obsessed gym junkie's backside.
So after all those times pushing about town it is so much easier to go out and do it some more. It's disconcerting that I can easily stand on one leg and push with the other seemingly for ever.
A kickbike is a simple device. Two wheels. Handlebars. Brakes and a footboard. There's not much in the way of hardware. It's light -- a mere 10 kgm -- so it is easy to pick up and carry the alloy frame about.
It's one handicap is that the footboard is a tad too low. While it's height suits cruising at a steady and comfortable cadence, negotiating gutters and humps will usually mean you'll be scraping your undercarriage. The Mibo, on the other hand, has a higher footboard.
When I get on a bicycle now it seems strange and foreign. You're higher up. You motor about driven by leg pistons. Your ass is stationary while the bike moves beneath you. The gearing ratio allows you to cheat effort.
For me there is no romance. No passion. It's all rather mechanical. You become an appendage to a machine. You pull at levers and push things about. Turn knobs. If you stop peddling, you fall over.
No wonder you tend to obsess over where you are going and not take pleasure in the getting there.
But a kickbike kick....well, it's balletic. A dance move that has its own inbuilt rhythm. It's a Crouching Tiger springing forth over an over again. It's like running on wheels for the sheer pleasure of it.
No wonder you tend to obsess over where you are going and not take pleasure in the getting there.
But a kickbike kick....well, it's balletic. A dance move that has its own inbuilt rhythm. It's a Crouching Tiger springing forth over an over again. It's like running on wheels for the sheer pleasure of it.
Interested? Check out Kickbike Australia.
