Riding Humiliation - Column.

How a dangerously uncool bike, a head injury and a mean comment from a incredibly handsome professional boxer made me a fan of embarrassing myself.

Recently, I have been riding around town on a small and humiliating safety orange-ish pink-ish e-bike. It’s one of those tiny little ones you can fold up and pack into the back of your car. It has a bell, a wing mirror and tiny kids’ tyres. My dad had been riding it for years before falling off on the Otago Rail Trail. He decided his days on two wheels were over, and he thought I might like his ride. I’m incredibly grateful to my dad for the gift; he’s a wonderful, thoughtful man. I literally owe him my life, but there’s no two ways about it - this little orange-ish pink-ish bike is rude as shit.

The image may not precisely match the actual humiliating bicycle.

Against the odds, the intrepid wee bicycle made it 1500 kilometres up the country from Dunedin to Auckland, albeit with the help of a plane and a van. It was always going to challenge my embarrassment threshold but I wasn’t prepared for just how uncool I look riding on the thing. The bike ages me 25 years. It puts 20kg around my waist. No one who sees me on this bike will ever be attracted to me again.

This raises a conundrum. Do I give in to my juvenile fear of embarrassment and my shallow vanity and hide the thing away only to bring it out when my Dad is visiting, or do I suck it up, strap my lunch to the wheel rack, ring the bell and hit the road with pride?

Before I answer that question, I think it’s important to point out that I have a fraught history when it comes to bikes and humiliation. Let me take you back in time.

It’s my first day of intermediate, I arrive at the big new school full of hope and excitement, riding my shiny new BMX and wearing what I think is a cool, full-face racing helmet. Unfortunately, this headgear and bike colour is not fashionable here like it was at Maori Hill Primary and I quickly pay the price. As I am happily locking the bike, three big cool kids grab my helmet and start throwing it back and forth to each other. A crowd gathers as I run between them, jumping up and down trying to get it back. Worse still, my mum has given me a shocking bowl cut. It’s a fiercely uncool hairdo, and it adds gallons of fuel to the bullying fire.

My helmet haircut a few years before the bike stand rumble.

“Hey, helmet head, it looks like you’re still wearing a helmet even with the helmet off”, yells a dickhead called Brendan. He unfairly receives a big laugh for his lame joke and my blood boils. Years later I discover that Brendan only has one ball but that doesn’t help me now. A fight breaks out. I land a couple of good blows, but I am small and puny and they eventually get me to the ground where they hit me around the head repeatedly with my helmet, as they yell ‘helmet head’ over and over again. The bell rings and everyone runs off to class. I’m left alone, lying by my bike, bleeding from the chin and head, sporting a fat lip, and riddled with self-hatred. Fear grips me. The next two years at this school are going to be tough if they’re anything like the first five minutes. I throw the helmet away and resolve to walk to school from that day forth.

Years later, my friends and I would remake this childhood scene on an episode of our TV show Back of the Y Masterpiece Television. Legendary Kiwi actor Phil Brough plays the role of me (although we changed my name to Morris and my haircut from bowl to red). I play that dickhead bully Brendan with the one testicle. As Morris is beaten around the head with the helmet the narrator yells, “Ironically, the very thing that was meant to protect his head is being used to mete out a vicious beating”.

The past is not a realm we live in; the problem isn’t back at intermediate school. The problem is the bike in front of me. If I’m going to utilise the multi-million dollar over-engineered bike lane privilege that has been lavished on Auckland’s peddlers, I’ll have to forget about the school bullies and look to the future. There are no big dudes out their waiting to punch me anymore. No cool kids looking to make fun of me. So I shove my helmet on my helmet head and ride my bike to work, and it’s super fun. The orange humiliator turns out to be a powerful little bastard. I’m passing cars on the thing. I hit 60k down Bond Street. I don’t even raise a sweat. A little known fact about E-bikes is that they are not exercise. You actually get fatter from riding them. But who cares? Screaming around the pink Te Ara I Whiti Light Path, then fanging it down Nelson Street is a bloody good time.

Then history repeats itself. Once again the cool kids are waiting for me at the bike stand. I pull up at work beside the 6 foot 4 Seven Sharp host Jeremy Wells, who has just got himself an E-bike too. An XL sized fancy flash one. Our bikes couldn’t contrast more. His is expensive, shiny, dark grey and cool with proper wheels. Mine is small, affordable and a rude safety orange. Wells is chatting to another tall good-looking gentleman. New Zealand professional boxer, double Commonwealth Games gold medalist, Olympic medalist and one of the smartest, coolest guys you could ever meet - David Nyika. Whenever this guy comes in for an interview, females lean around corners, deliver things that don’t need to be delivered, and generally do everything they can to have a perv at the man.

Anyway, there I am on my little humiliator of a bike beside big David and Jeremy. This time, I front-foot the situation by asking, “Hey guys, what do you think of my ride?”. David answers, “Matt, that is exactly the kind of bike I would imagine you riding around on”. What he means by this is, “Matt, you are a funny little man on a funny little bike, and that makes sense”. There are a few ways I could react to this. I could take offence, or I could feel embarrassed. I instead chose to take it as a compliment. When British Royal Navy officer James Norrington told Captain Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie — “You are without doubt the worst pirate I’ve ever heard of.” Capt. Jack Sparrow replied, “But you have heard of me”. The great and beautiful David Nykia may think my humiliating little orange bike suits me - but he has heard of me. He called me by my name. So that’s a win. Also, he doesn’t take off my helmet and hit me around the head with it so I have made progress in life.

IN CONCLUSION

The psychologist James Hollis wrote in his excellent book What Matters Most “Ask yourself of every dilemma, every choice, every relationship, every commitment, or every failure to commit. Does this choice diminish me or enlarge me?”. Hiding my humiliating little orange bike away in the garage would have made my life smaller. Less adventurous. Spending 6k on a cool one to impress others would have made me poorer, both finically and spiritually. Giving into shame would’ve weakened me and empowered feelings of shame in other areas of my life. I am not the little boy who got his head caved in on his first day of school. I am a grown-up, and grown-ups don’t care what other people think about their humiliating orange bicycles; they’re proud and grateful for what they have. In fact - screw everyone - I’m going to make my bike even ruder - I might even add spokey dokeys.

Anyway, you seem busy. I’ll let you go.

Love

Matt Heath

Me on another humbling bike. The Mammoth.