I own a pink bicycle. It’s a beach cruiser with a white seat and a white frame with pink accents. It’s a good bike in that it gets me from point A to point B. I usually only ride my bike when I have to travel further than a mile. I like riding bikes. I have owned three bikes through college and each one has taught me something. This bike taught me about confidence.

Pink bicycle. Taken by Ludwig Ahgren.

I didn’t go out and buy a pink bike, well I did, but I didn’t buy it for my own use. I bought this pink bike for my ex-girlfriend. We lived together for a few months and I would occasionally borrow her old, much less pink bike, to go to class. One day I locked it up outside my class and when I came back the bike was gone- stolen. This is the replacement bike I got her as a gift. When we broke up she moved out and had no way to bring the bike, so it stayed with me.

You get a lot of stares if you’re a dude riding a pink bike. I live off of Mill ave. which is home to drunk people 24/7 so I also get a lot of comments from people riding off of liquid confidence. Sarcastic comments from ‘bros’ hanging out, “nice bike!” Or possibly genuine comments from girls hanging out, “nice bike!” It’s really hard to tell the difference. I always approach each comment the same way. I respond genuinely. If they say nice bike, I respond thank you. There have only been a few occasions where instead of hearing about the niceness of my bike, I hear that I’m “gay” or a “faggot” which is a little harder to respond to.

I’m not embarrassed by much, in fact nothing really embarrasses me. Not to say I don’t do embarrassing things, but life is life and I’m not perfect and it’s better to embrace what I mess up than make it a bigger deal. I remember when I was in 8th grade I had a neon bright sweater than my mom got me. It was really bright and really green. I thought it was cool, but I wore it to school one day and got some comments about how bright it was. I didn’t wear it for months and then one day my sister saw it in the back of my closet and asked why I didn’t wear it. I told her, “I don’t think I can pull it off.” She told me straight up, “You can pull anything off if you’re confident enough.” That advice has stuck with me all this time. I’ll ride around in a bright green sweater with a pink bike and overalls if it’s what makes me happy because I’m confident.

I think stereotypes are really dumb. It takes away individuality from a person and works to create a bland society full of uninspired citizens. If every guy has a black street bike and every girl has a light blue beach cruiser then I think the cool person is the one guy with the yellow unicycle. Riding a pink bike doesn’t make you gay, and being gay shouldn’t be considered an insult. Society is far behind when it comes to those social issues and I don’t think the next four years are going to help that.

I stopped riding the bike. Not because the comments or embarrassment, but mostly because the history of the bike. It’s weird, it’s a piece of metal that I bought, but when I ride it I feel like I’m relying on my ex. It’s a mile from my apartment to class why do I need to turn a nice 20 minute walk into a 10 minute bike ride? Why don’t I enjoy the walk instead of speeding up every aspect of my life. I don’t bike because I walk. And I walk because I want to enjoy life, by myself.