Real Men Ride Bikes

Men have had a long-standing love affair with machines. The more powerful the machine, the more manly it is seen to be, and the more men desire it. This has been a factor driving western civilisation since the industrial revolution, and probably since long before that as well.

 
Take the motor car for example: the desirability of a car can be measured by the ‘drool factor’. A quick glance through any motoring magazine, or a wander around the local ‘Boys and Their Toys’ expo gives some idea of what features on a car gives it a high drool factor. These include; shinyness (including the amount of chrome), size of the engine, volume of the engine sound, low profile tyres, spoilers and so on. Basically they are all things that either make it go fast, or make it look like it can go fast.

 
Men flock around these cars, or pore over the magazines wishing that they were man enough to have such a powerful vehicle. They perhaps imagine that driving such a powerful car means that they themselves will become more powerful and they will be more of a man because of it.

 
To me it is curious that men should think in such a way. How is it logical to equate a) the ability to go fast with manliness, and b) being carried around by a machine with the personal ability to do so? I mean, fundamentally a car is merely a device by which we can move ourselves around with minimum physical effort. It follows that the more powerful the machine, the less physical effort we require to get anywhere. Even holding a steering wheel requires the burning of some calories, so a quicker trip requires less effort than a slower one. Therefore, a more powerful vehicle requires less effort from us than a less powerful one. I’m ignoring for the purpose of this article the amount of effort required to work in order to pay for all this power, but so, it would seem, do the drivers of these vehicles.

 
So, if a powerful car somehow equates with manliness, it therefore follows that reducing physical effort increases manliness. Therein lies my problem. Men, in order to reach their full manly potential must overcome one thing – idleness. Idleness is a trait common to all men – just ask anyone who is married to one, but an idle man is not a real man. To raise manliness, ie to become a real man, requires effort, both physical, mental and spiritual effort, and to do that, idleness must be overcome.

 
The trouble with the overuse of overpowerful cars is that it just encourages this idleness. Consider this: A car is merely a nice comfy chair to which an engine and wheels have been attached. It requires almost no physical effort to operate it, a fact to which the number of road deaths due to falling asleep at the wheel are a testimony. On long trips it is necessary to stop the car, get out and move around a bit just so the legs don’t atrophy. It is, in short, a device that enables us to be lazy. My question is; how manly is that? I don’t see ads for manly men slamming down lightly fizzed soft drinks after driving to the shops – No! they have just kayaked off a waterfall, or run a marathon, or something that requires heroic effort and produces bucketloads of sweat – that’s the image of manliness in the ads.

 
Which brings me to the idea behind this piece. Real Men Ride Bikes. I have been called a ‘poofta’ on several occasions as men drive past me on my bike. Maybe it has something to do with the tight black pants, but I won’t go down that path right now. It always gets me thinking though - who is the ‘poofta’ (no disrespect to gay people, many of whom I am sure a quite manly), and who is the real man here? Is it the person out going hard on a bike making a not insubstantial effort to move himself around, or is it the person sitting back relaxing in their nice comfy chair being carried around by a machine, or more often than not, the passenger of the car, who is arguably making even less of an effort than the driver.

 
If there is still any doubt that real men ride bikes and it’s the wusses that cower in their cars, consider the following. One of the traits of manliness as we recognise it is the shrugging off of danger, even laughing in the face of it. Further to that, one of the prime excuses for not riding a bike, even from those that consider themselves to be real men, is the idea, imagined or otherwise, that the road is a dangerous place to do it. I say to those people - ‘Pussies! What are you afraid of? A few cuts and bruises? Death? Fine! Go hide in your big metal box like a girl, and leave the bike riding to the real men.’

 
There is also the idea that men should be self- reliant – no real man wants to be  overly dependant on anyone, but keeping a car on the road requires utter dependence on thousands of others to provide the fuel for it, fix it when it breaks, build the roads for it to run on, etc. etc. A bike minimises this, and apart from walking, is the form of transport that requires the least dependence on others – Food is fuel, which I can grow myself if I so choose; I can do most repairs on it myself; while I use the roads, I am by no means dependant on them, and I certainly don’t require such a heavily designed and constructed one as a car does; my body is the engine, and that is largely self repairing etc etc.

And on top of all this, a bike can still let us men play out our love affair with machinery. A top of the line Cannondale, or custom-made DeKerf is just as droolworthy as any car, and a bike can be tinkered with and modified just as readily. The tight black pants could be a problem for some, but hey, they aren’t mandatory - wear whatever you like.

 
So bikes provide all the fun that men like in their toys, and at the same time allow us to transcend our idleness and become Real Men. The choice is now to take up my challenge and show how manly you really are, or just keep on driving your sissy cars.