It Starts With Cycling

So I was getting some thai food today. Messenger bag on, helmet on, sweaty from riding around. The lady who works at the restaurant and I are friends, she chats with me, gives me free stuff sometimes, I buy lots of her food, its a great relationship. So we start talking about biking, and I mention I might ride out to P-town this weekend. Without batting an eye she looks at me and goes, “are you gay?” No pause, no big deal, just a simple honest question. I told her the truth, and we kept talking about other things.

I didn’t even think about it until I was getting ready to leave and the older gentleman next to me turns and with a nervous laugh goes “can you even ask people that?” I didn’t know what to say, so I went “sure its 2012.”

As I was leaving I thought to myself, that asking if someone is gay should be like that, it should be like asking them if they like milk or soy in their coffee. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being gay, so what’s wrong with casually dropping a question about it into conversation? It was refreshing and kind of awesome that this lady either didn’t know it was supposed to be “a big deal” or she just didn’t care. Either way, these awesome conversations always start with cycling.

I cant count the number of amazing, in depth, mind blowing conversations (about a million topics) that have started with two people talking about bikes. Its like bicycles are the universal conversation solvent. All conversations can come from a base of cycling….or at least it seems that way.

Have you had any interesting conversations that started off talking about bikes and ended up some place else?

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