We didn’t see this coming, but as proclaimed by the pop star all the way back in 2006, transitioning from a noodly-haired boyband star to a buzzcut-donning pop sensation, Justin Timberland is bringing sexy back — or should I say SexyBike?
Taking part in the Portland Bike Bus, Timberlake showed up as a special guest to surprise around 200 people, including families and their children for a half-mile ride down Northeast Klickitat Street to Alameda Elementary School, bumping his hits like Mirrors and Can’t Stop the Wheeling. I mean, Can’t Stop the Feeling.
The group, which organises the ride every Wednesday, went viral in October when they posted a plea on social media for the Memphis crooner to join them while in town for a concert, racking up over ten million views on TikTok and Instagram.
Samuel Balto, founder of BikeBusPDX and a former physical education teacher, said he had extended the invitation to Timberlake because “he’s awesome”. “I grew up listening to him. He’s got a lot of generational reach — everyone knows who Justin Timberlake is,” he said.
“I think that Justin Timberlake joining the Bike Bus would set a great example for how people can get around — on a bike — for everyday transportation.”
Given Timberlake’s conviction of drink driving last September, maybe he should steer clear of motor vehicles anyway and give bikes a spin. If he wants to go faster still, he can always put on a skinsuit… and tie.
In the same week three cyclists in Adelaide were injured after hitting a wire trap strewn across a shared path, those very shared paths are now the centre of a raging online debate, with a column in Guardian Australia sharing (erm, no pun intended) a “petty gripe” with cyclists, or as they are described in the second para: “wheeled threats” who can “spoil the serenity.
What could possibly push someone to have such strong opinions about cyclists, you ask? Well, because according to the columnist, cyclists’ cardinal sin is not ringing bells when passing pedestrians on shared paths, turning “peaceful walkways into something more like racetracks”.
Viv Smythe, the columnist, however, specifies that it’s not all cyclists — it’s only the “subset who fly past pedestrians as if the shared pathway is a velodrome”. She adds: “It’s especially alarming when a cycling group whoosh-whoosh-whooshes past with never a bell sounded beforehand, nor a slowing of speed. Now I appreciate that they are forced to pursue their hobby in a city that hates cyclists. And that many cyclists believe pedestrians will respond poorly if they sound their bell as they approach.
“But I appreciate even more those cyclists who demonstrably know that the space is not for their exclusive use and take shared pathway safety seriously (unlike the retiree cyclist who berated my retiree husband for walking on a “bike path”).”
She ends the column describing her “favourite” kind of cyclists — “As they approach and slow for overtaking, the lead rider loudly calls something like “bikes coming through, six of us” so pedestrians are alerted, and then as the first rider comes through they say “five more behind”, the next rider says “four more behind” and so on, until the final rider says “last one”. We’ve been passed by several groups doing this now, and you are all awesome,” she concludes.
> Government rejects calls for cyclists to be required to use a bell
However, not many cyclists online seemed to agree with this sentiment of ringing their bells while passing pedestrians online. Lawrence Davies wrote on Bluesky: “My wife stopped ringing her bell on shared paths when a guy started screaming at her for using it. Apparently the bell means ‘you need to get out of the way’.”
My petty gripe: I just want one ding from speeding cyclists. How hard can it be?
— Guardian Australia (@australia.theguardian.com) 16 January 2025 at 14:04
Another Bluesky user also seconded this opinion, saying: “Here's my experience: when I ring my bell on a shared path, I think I am saying, ‘I’m about to pass you.’ But what a significant percentage hear is ‘Get out of my way’, so they leap right into my path,” while one person wrote: “The people who write this need to go spend some time on a bike and experience how many people hear a bike bell and immediately jump into your path because they assume it means they're in the way and need to move.”
And then there was Lumberjack Wharfie (Bluesky username, of course), who replied: “Yeah buddy that’s nice and all until we get an article in the Guardian titled ‘My petty gripe: How dare you ding a bell at me?’”
So here’s my question to you, do you ring bells when passing pedestrians on a shared bike path, or do you rely more on your vocal chords to alert them that you’re coming through — or maybe you choose to do neither? Let us know in the comments what’s your usual go-to and why…
One of the reasons I fell in love with cinema was the vivid, audacious, and surreal worlds conjured by the silver-haired filmmaker from Montana, completely reshaping how I viewed the art form. So when I saw the news of David Lynch’s death — after walking out of the cinema with a heavy heart thanks to the (really great) movie A Real Pain, no less — let’s just say your live blog host found it difficult to focus on the doughnut instead of the hole.
Lynch, who became a Hollywood legend with his boundary-pushing works like Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and the TV series Twin Peaks, passed away last night, aged 78, after being diagnosed with emphysema.
So to celebrate and remember the icon, truly one of the best to ever do it, here’s an image of Lynch riding a tandem with his high-school sweetheart.