All I want to do is bicycle bicycle bicycle

After 9 months of relying on Sydney's public transport, I finally got a bike.  Unlike Chicago, Sydney's streets are anything but straight.  When the city was being built, nobody ever put a second thought into expansion.  It was as if every time a new street needed to be created, they found some drunk, toothless man to take a machete and walk through the woods clearing a path.  Streets widen and narrow on a whim, and no warning is given when one lane ends and a new one begins.  The trains were built at ground level, and nobody ever thought of having railroad crossings.  Street signs?  Who needs em!  I was looking at a bike map the other day, and my quickest path to work consists of a back alley, a pedestrian easement next to a middle school, more than one sidewalk, and many busy, narrow streets.  On top of all this, the topographical landscape is grueling.  Hill after hill, all the way to anywhere.

I contemplated all this in these 9 bike-less months, and thought it might be tough, or even not worth doing.  But after getting a bike and riding around in the summer sun, jacarandas in bloom, pedaling down residential streets without hands on the handlebars, I remembered why this was my choice method of transport for two years in Chicago.  Bikes are awesome.