The Balkanska Pricha Series
They were everywhere: winding from the center to the outskirts, meandering into both large parks and narrow alleyways, crossing from one bank of the river to the other, and forming a perfect ring around the ancient fortress. These cycling arteries formed an intricate pattern–invisible from the ground but clearly discernible from the observation tower or from a bird’s-eye view.
Absolutely everyone rode bikes here. They say it’s impossible to grow up by the sea and not learn to swim; it was the same here–in the city of bike paths, people knew how to pedal from their earliest years.
The townspeople joked that in local maternity wards, babies were born on two wheels. Bicycles were manufactured, sold, repaired, and even buried here. Seriously, the city had a bicycle cemetery. And the everyday question, “Did someone glue the wheels together?” didn’t shock anyone–riding a bike to your grave was considered a perfectly dignified way to go.
The flat landscape presented no obstacles, and you hardly ever had to shift gears. Only on special days, starting sometime in early March, would a strange and stubborn wind sweep through the city. If it blew straight into your face, it was easier to just give up, turn around, and ride back–imagining that some powerful, invisible god was nudging you under the soft seat with a parent’s hand.
The city also lay right on the route of one of Europe’s major cycling races. Long before the race, residents would begin preparing for it in earnest. On the eve of the start, the city buzzed with anticipation, and with the first gunshot signaling the race’s approach, it went completely wild.
During those days, the urban section of the route was lined with garlands and flashing beacons. Televisions in coffee shops broadcast the race stages from early morning until late at night, and it was considered bad form not to be up to date on the events. Cycling gear retailers made a year’s worth of revenue in just a couple of those weeks.
Needless to say, during the competition, the bike lanes were unreservedly given over to the athletes. City dwellers, who just yesterday seemed to have fused with their pedals, as if by magic remembered how to walk and humbly gave way.
The rest of the year, however, traffic on the bike paths was constantly bustling. As darkness fell, soft lighting came on, and the rustling of tires didn’t stop even after midnight.
But the bike race wasn’t the city’s only attraction.
Every morning, when the main rush had subsided–just before the supermarkets and produce stands opened–the Veloladies would ride out onto the streets with an air of confidence.
The “Bike Ladies” were undoubtedly the highlight of this place. In the age of electric scooters and Teslas, watching women in voluminous, deliberately impractical outfits, pedaling leisurely on retro bicycles, was a pure delight. Almost all of them preferred models with low frames and wicker baskets adorned with fresh flowers and ribbons. It was considered particularly chic to match a dress exactly to the color of the frame and wear elegant gloves to complete the ensemble. It was a mesmerizing, utterly old-fashioned, costumed spectacle.
Natalie had recently arrived in the city on a work visa, not knowing how long she would stay. But she was undoubtedly charmed by these ladies, and every now and then she caught herself thinking that she was about to buy a bicycle with a basket, carmine gloves, a full skirt, and meekly blend into this perfect urban aesthetic.
And yet, for her, it was a sort of “terrifyingly beautiful road.”
She hadn’t ridden a bike since childhood, and she’d never ridden through a bustling city. But worst of all was that, having lived in this orderly cycling paradise for several months now, Natalie constantly felt a wild, unbearable urge to run away. And if not to run away–then to snatch a megaphone from a police officer and scream into it at the top of her lungs until he let her go.
There were two reasons for this rebellion inside her. First, a silly childhood story: because of a stupid misunderstanding involving a stolen bike, she ended up in the children’s room at the police station (the nauseating feeling of shame hadn’t faded even after years of psychotherapy). And second–and this was an ironic consequence of that trauma–she had the misfortune of falling in love with a professional cyclist.
The love of her life, a seducer in tight-fitting track pants and a praying mantis helmet, had, despite his comical appearance, firmly parked himself in her heart. And so that very master manipulator could very well have rolled down that same route as early as May or June–not only into her current city, but also back into her life with complete disregard for her feelings. Try getting him out of there afterward.
That’s how Natalie felt in May. But by early June, she was feeling better (which is why she never did steal the megaphone).
Instead, on one of the first days of June, she found herself sitting quietly by the window of a corner coffee shop. Rain was drizzling outside the window; the flow of cyclists didn’t stop even in a downpour, let alone in such a gentle drizzle. Natalie swung her leg back and forth and looked around. The barista, with nothing better to do, switched the channel, and the boxing ring on the screen gave way to a broadcast of the “Yellow Jersey” cycling race. The athletes in their tight-fitting jumpsuits and helmets, rising above their saddles on sharp turns and freezing in the airflow, truly resembled a swarm of strange yet graceful praying mantises hurrying to answer their queen’s call.
Half an hour later, Natalie was surprised to find herself biting her lip and staring intently at the screen. Usually completely indifferent to sports coverage, she suddenly felt a thrill–real, intense, and almost painful. She shifted her gaze to the barista to shake off the obsession, but it didn’t help.
She could hardly remember the first few months of her relationship with Bogomol. Yes, he was French, a cyclist, and had been invited to be the face of the embassy’s marketing campaign with a message along the lines of “France–cycling–the yellow jersey–success.” Back then, Natalie was completely absorbed in her career; she designed souvenirs featuring those jerseys, the jerseys themselves, and read up on the history of the race to include key points in the brochures… But she couldn’t remember their first meeting or her feelings at the time. And then everything was a blur–just speed, passion, and an inevitable catastrophe. No, he wasn’t the one who got into an accident. She was. Rushing to meet him.
Natalie finished her coffee, paid the bill, and stepped outside. The rain had stopped, the sun had come out, and the freshly washed asphalt instantly began to steam. Her short hair immediately puffed up from the humidity, turning her head into a tousled dandelion.
“I prefer girls with long hair,” he’d say condescendingly to her, all while sending a message that read “Je pense que je t’aime” to some other girl. How silly–to be thinking about that right now!–Natalie thought. Now, she would have easily seen through his manipulation.
She was walking to the market through the residential neighborhoods. On the way, she peered into the window of yet another bike shop. No, no, no. She couldn’t let this idea take over–imagining running into him on a bike path in the City of Bicycles! How silly!
But guess what? She went into the store. The selection there was boring and utilitarian, and she found herself thinking enviously yet again: Where do the city ladies get those stunning retro bikes of theirs? The ones with provenance, with a history…
Just for the sake of curiosity, she asked the salesman to let her take a test ride on one of the models she’d spotted in the corner. The salesman looked flustered: “Are you sure? That’s a children’s model. For adult ladies–those over there, by the wall.”
Embarrassment instantly flushed Natalie’s cheeks, and she bolted out onto the street without saying goodbye. Of course, it was hard not to notice: deep down, she was still a child whose heart had been forever given to a very specific bicycle. And this bike had nothing in common with sleek retro models, flower baskets, the lace skirts of local ladies, or even the praying mantis-like cyclist.
Her first love and her first taste of freedom had once been a bright red “Kama.”
She came to own this “Kama” under rather strange circumstances. It happened after she stole that very bicycle belonging to someone else, which had been temptingly parked outside the music school. She figured she should ask for permission to ride it, but her desire was so great that… she simply took it and rode down the street… And then she rode off. She wanted to return it, of course, but she got lost in the city… and when they found her, they took her to the children’s room at the police station.
A dim office, the musty smell of stale tea and dust, the inspector’s stern face, her pale, silent mother, and her, feeling like a terrible criminal!
She barely slept at all that night, dreading the meeting with her strict grandfather in the morning. However, at daybreak, her wonderful grandfather neither scolded her nor insisted on an apology. He simply took her to the “A Thousand Little Things” store and bought her the most precious little thing a child could receive that day–a bicycle!
Natalie didn’t have matching gloves, a basket, or a gear shifter. But “Kama” had a cast-aluminum folding lock on the frame, a heavy metal rack, a ringing chrome bell, and the smell of fresh rubber and motor oil. And then there were the tires. No one else in town had beige tires. Only she did. Grandpa adjusted the tall leather saddle himself with a big wrench to fit her small frame, and even then it was still a bit too big for her. A bit too big. Hmm. Wiping his oily hands on his apron, Grandpa said back then, “Well, that’s it, Natasha–now no wind will ever catch up to you.”
It wasn’t a pink girls’ bike with a basket for dolls, but real, wild, uncompromising freedom. On that “Kama,” you could fly downhill with your eyes closed, mow down the tall grass with your knees, and ride as far away from home as possible; to where the asphalt ended and the endless fields began. And she tried to find the memory of that pure, ringing freedom in the fields on the city’s bike paths, on the websites of its bike shops, and in their store windows.
Natalie stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Riding toward her on a turquoise retro bike with an armful of peonies in the basket, another “Cycle Lady” in a perfectly matched hat glided gracefully past. Natalie looked at her, then at her own sneakers and short, fluffy hair–and suddenly smiled.
The perfect city, with its perfect cycling culture, no longer seemed overwhelming or intimidating to her. She no longer needed to put on a front or conform to the local aesthetic, to wear carmine gloves and pretend to be someone she wasn’t. And she certainly no longer needed to fear the arrival of a man from her past: his tight-fitting tracksuits and grandiose ego would look comical next to the real girl on the red “Kama” that she now remembered herself to be.
Turning the corner of the market, Natalie saw an old workshop where, at the entrance, secondhand bikes that had seen better days were propped up against the wall. Among them, there wasn’t a single ribbon, flower, or woven basket. But in the very corner, a slightly worn but sturdy red frame glistened brightly in the sun. It wasn’t a “Kama”; it was an old-style Yugoslav bicycle. Natalie touched the black–not beige–tire with the toe of her sneaker and pulled out her credit card.