Now That's A Good Lookin' Rack!

“Hey good lookin’ we’ll be back to pick ya up later!”  Of course my younger readers might not remember this Karaoke precursor gem of a commercial with all the quality of a bad Saturday Night Live skit, but the quote from the Mister Microphone guy in the convertible is forever engrained in the hard drive of my brain in the same folder as the file for the Chia Pet jingle.  It’s so funny I want to say it again, wink and point my finger at you, “Hey good lookin’ we’ll be back to pick ya up later!”  Hang on.  Let me wipe the laughing tear from my cheek before it drips on the keyboard. 

The reason I bring this up is that, as a cyclist, I too have this uncontrollable reflex that causes me to gawk at pretty things on the sidewalk from my car.  No matter where I am, no matter how fast I’m driving, I’m like the head banded man-pig hipster dufus that wolf whistles at girls on the street from his car window, only I’m checking’ out their bike and keep the comments to myself.  “Nice wheels.”  “Ooh, now those are actually cool lookin’ panniers.”  “What is that?  A Ciocc?  Sweet!“ 

I did it again this morning while driving into downtown Cincinnati along Riverside Drive.  As the name implies, it’s a scenic drive along the Ohio River.  If you’re comfortable riding your bike in traffic, you’re rewarded with a blue sky sunrise over the river draped by the hills of Northern Kentucky.  So, I get in the left lane to pass and get a taste of the eye candy bike porn this commuter is riding.  Only this time, as I looked in the rear view, the bike rider picked his head up toward my direction and checked me out right back.  In my best Joey Tribbiani voice, “How you doing?”  Not surprising.  As a cyclist obviously it should come as no question that we know absolutely everyone in this Tri-State area of 2 million people who have a bike rack on their car.  We’re all part of the bike brotherhood.  So, while the sun glistening off his brass blinged Brooks Brothers saddle caught my eye, no doubt he saw my 5-bike roof rack on my Toyota 4-Runner and said to himself, “now that’s….a good looking rack.”