The Iron Horse

The bicycle feature. Helmets nowhere to be seen (sometimes the lycra lads sport them). Nights rarely a light in sight. Pillion passengers are common, usually in the style of the post-war French: cobblestoned street, fountain, ornate facades, and rounding the corner one of those heavy, dark work-horses with the long-haired girl seated on the luggage rack, long dress hiding the wheel. On Geylang the working girls are driven to Love hotels in this same fashion. Erect grannies and grandpas ride up and down using the bells for greeting those at the pavement tables as much as for warnings. Hawkers have their wares arranged—plastic sacks of tea hanging from the handlebars, soft toys mounted, boxes of curry puffs. Cardboard and aluminum fossickers. More striking still the braking system usually employed by the foreign workforce, the mainland Chinese and Indians. Fred Flintstone resort on the thoroughfares of Singapore, even Victoria Street itself—steel-capped work-boot coming off the pedal at the intersection, thick heavy sole providing excellent traction. With practiced weaving and dodging through the heavier, less nimble vehicles, anticipation of the moves and the stalled traffic, what more could one need? The young fellow in the hard-hat just now through and away.