There was a time when it was easy to feel the wind in your hair. This was until someone finally found employment for all those awkward second cousins in sleeveless jumpers by inventing health and safety.
It used to be we just kicked our bikes into life and roared off into the sunset with nothing but a pair of sunglasses on our heads. Helmets were only there to keep our girlfriend’s hair from getting too messed up. Then the H&S boys saw us having way too much fun and came up with their compulsory helmet rules.
A wind-in-their-hair moment and not a sleeveless jumper in sight.
Things have gone downhill from there. Some of the best times I had as a kid were riding around with my brothers in the back of my dad’s truck. We were supposed to sit down and hold on – mom’s rules – but if she wasn’t in the truck the rules got fairly relaxed and we would stand with our heads above the cab and get the full blast of air in our faces. We used to pretend we were surfing down the highway, leaning into the corners and bracing ourselves for a radical back-kick when we pulled up at the lights.
Then they banned that too so we took to sniffing glue. Not really, but I don’t understand why they haven’t got around to banning that. It’s got be far more dangerous. I guess banning glue would leave too big a gap in their immaculately ordered stationery cupboards.
But anyway today my heart was lifted when I drove behind a truck with two guys standing up in the back and enjoying their wind-in-hair experience. Health & safety is a fairly loose concept here. I have a feeling it is not really considered to be men’s work and anyone lifting a finger and wagging it at perilous-but-fun behaviour is likely to be laughed at.
I’m sure riding in the back of a truck is as much against the law in Portugal as it is anywhere else in Europe, but in this country there seems to be enough of a ‘what the hell’ attitude to mostly ignore it. I haven’t seen people go as far as riding their bikes without helmets, but I have seen plenty of bikers with horse-riding hats on their heads. And if that’s not putting a finger up at the second cousins than I don’t know what is.