Ponytail Picks #34 - Bicycles

Summer is in the air. It’s time to hop on your two-wheeler and see where Ponytail Picks will go this week.

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LISTEN

Biking songs

Starts off as a rather perky instrumental synth beat; you’re off on a pleasant evening bike ride in the bright Swiss countryside (that’s a thing, right?) and your heart pumps hard along with legs. Then rather abruptly, your destination: the beat slows in your chest before becoming unnoticeable as you take in a gorgeous sunset. Strings swirl and build as your emotions take hold. Then, a new sense of oneness when the beat kicks back in and you put heel to kickstand and head home, full of coursing blood and blissful feeling.

I can tell
When it’s not going well
You just like riding your bicycle
It helps you forget

Steady-as-a-rock soft rockers and one of my long time favourite bands Starflyer 59 capture the cathartic melancholy of motion. 

A trip in more than one sense of the word, amirite, Bruce? He does sing atop his bicycle right off the bat (“drift along, hear the gravel crackle”), but also, that off-kilter humming and his stop and go lyrical delivery and guitar picking make it a bit of a trippy musical experience overall. Plus, he uses the word “loquaciously.” I had to look it up. 

Saving the best bike song for last here, a song dripping both in childhood nostalgia and the sort of yearning that doesn’t go away when you get older:

I remember what it was like
Astride my yellow bike
First freedom, second life
All the places I could ride
Leaving early packing light
That little ache inside
my kingdom for someone to ride with

Frontman David Bazan doesn’t bother obscuring the meaning in the music video, as his child and adult selves act in parallel:

As much as not much has changed over the years, Bazan has still picked up some wisdom along the way for all us bicycle riders on this hard pavement of life:

If you keep your legs pumping
Despite everything
Well, you can take that sting
You can make it swing

-JB

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WATCH

The Joy of Kids on Bikes

The Sound of Music

You can point out a lot of socio-political issues with this movie now. For one thing, it’s about WWII and it doesn’t even acknowledge the Holocaust once. But none of that matters while watching this “Do-Re-Mi” scene out of context.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

You can’t make a list like this without mentioning E.T. You just can’t. It’s the first thing that comes to mind.

Yes, it sticks because every kid wants to fly on their bicycle, but it also shows the freedom a bike can offer better than any movie I can think of.

The Goonies

Vontrapps aside, Spielberg basically invented this trope. He pulled it off again three years later with this classic. I haven’t seen it in years. Anyone know how it holds up?

On a side note, Astoria—the town the film is based in—is a perfect Pacific Northwest getaway. Quiet, beautiful, and with a surprising number of good places to eat and drink. Give it a try!

No Country for Old Men

You’re not expecting an image of innocence at the end of this, but the Coen brothers always know how to defy expectations. My favourite detail of the scene? Anton paying for the shirt.

Stranger Things

This isn’t the only modern story that throws back to Spielberg’s bike-gang archetype, but it’s definitely the one that gives it the most screen time.

-AK

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READ

Blogging about biking

When I think of biking, I think of my dad, Gareth Brandt. Biking is a passion of his, and so is writing, and so for today’s “READ” picks I’ll be plugging a few blog posts he’s written on the subject. 

My dad biked to the college where he taught pretty much every day for over 20 years until his recent career shift into freelance work. This wasn’t just a quick 5 minute ride on flat ground, either—it was an intense 10 km-ish ride up and down hills each way. As a teen, I remember rolling my eyes a few times when this fact would be used against me when I wanted a ride or wanted the car to drive myself somewhere a similar distance away, but it’s all admiration now, and even though I’m secure in the fact that I don’t have the capacity or drive (heh heh) to bike like he does, his intersectional passion and approach to biking as a means of transport inspires me to think about other aspects of my life I could approach in a similar manner. Here are a few of his biking related posts on his blog:

“Biking to work”

An overview of his top 10 reasons why he bikes to work. My favourite part is how he refers to a car as a “tin can” and later, as a “metal shell.” Just the perfect amount of snark. Never change, dad!

“Bill”

A uniquely touching profile of a stranger who became a friend on the repeated crossing of paths (one via bike, one via dog-walking).

“The Worst Day of Cycling to Work Ever”

The miserable weather to start the day was only the beginning! As my dad poignantly reflects after recounting the events,

In the past I have cycled in great self-righteousness… on and on I could pontificate about the benefits of cycling to work… All this did not matter yesterday morning as I cursed my own stupidity and stubbornness, my wife for laughing, my colleague for waving, each passing slush-spewing motorist, my bike for freezing up, the meteorologist who forecasted this mess and God who is ultimately to blame for everything.

“Twice Around the World in Twenty Years”

Over 11 years after his first “Biking to work” post comes this engaging summary of the ups and downs (falls) of his biking history. My favourite line comes after he talks about how over his many years of biking to work the city eventually developed more and more trails for him and his fellow bikers to use in peace instead of roads filled with those metal death machines: 

[It] changed my prayer life from intercession to contemplation!

Love you, dad. Keep on biking the good fight.

-JB

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The trail ends here. Hide your BMX in the bushes and continue with us on foot as we search for the end of the rainbow in two weeks time, hopefully procuring for you a pot of picks on the topic of

colour.