Might get wet. I watch the sky through my window, low cloud massing, the few blue streaks wiped out with a fat grey Sharpie. The gum trees rock back and forth but no splash appears on the glass, yet. I am as attuned to the weather as a farmer, the app my constant companion. Yet I’m relaxed: 100% chance of rain? Yeah nah.
In Sydney, it’s not going to rain all day, or even for the next 10 minutes. I’m banking on it holding off, slackening into a steady drizzle for my 20-minute ride home, or releasing a torrent then stopping outright. Days when all that is wrong, and I hit the worst of it, I simply take it slowly. I’ll exchange my glasses for contact lenses so I can see, cover my front basket and button up my simple raincoat. And there’s a hot shower at each end.
My commute took this new turn more than a year ago. The cycle paths which run almost door to door along the six kilometres between home and work opened my eyes but e-bikes were the game-changer. I booked a test ride with Lug+Carrie and plunged in. This ride, the bookend of my work day, has become a daily pleasure, immersed in my surroundings, the frustration of traffic traded for wind whipping around me, muscles working, senses engaged.
Hills and water are Sydney’s defining features and my trip takes in long gentle ones that are brilliant to coast down and a few steep climbs. I ride down into mangroves around a Harbour creek where the temperature drops markedly and then up and out. The pedal-assist motor lets me enjoy it, and where I used to grit my teeth and push past the lactic acid burn in my legs, now I am conditioned to the ride, knowing where to push hard and where to glide. I play with the power, turning it off going down, and along the flats, and back on and up to full as the ascent bites. I’m leaner, stronger.
I recognise other cyclists, runners, dog-walkers. I pass restaurant staff uncovering tables and pulling down chairs for breakfast trade, smile back at small children, their stares intense before ducking behind their parents. Ducks and bush turkeys and lizards emerge from the bush and I’ve been joined on the path by gangs of kids, hooting and hollering at each other as they overtake me.
I catch up to cars as they bank up at lights and at intersections. Where my path joins the road, most drivers give me space, acknowledge my right to be there. Not all—not the ute who honked me long and loud because I dared to ride in front of him (I’m sure it was a him), or the woman who idled in her car across the path, on her phone, then called me rude when I asked her to move. Go gently. I don’t share your rage.
I’ve had a few spills, the worst on a rainy night, where I hit a poorly placed concrete curb. I got up, got back on and cycled home but repairs (to me and the bike) meant a few weeks off. Driving again had me chafing at the bit: I could have been home in the time it took to get through two sets of lights. The ‘privilege’ of travelling in a sealed bubble around the city is a con, a sometimes necessary evil.
Now rain splashes across my window and by the time I’ve got downstairs, Sydney’s fickle weather has become a downpour but as I lift my face, its cool embrace feels like freedom.
Your Second Draft 