During this week’s practical we were asked to run down to the streets of Melbourne to capture what we would think best describes or signifies a “Melbourne Moment”. 10 minutes were all that we were given to leave the room, get out of the building, hunt for a significant moment, snap a picture, and head on back to class. At the end of it all, we had to email the picture to our tutor and she would make a collage or a photo gallery of it on her blog.

Just as I was leaving the room and into the lift, my mind started brainstorming ideas of what best represents Melbourne. Being such a diverse and metropolitan city, so many things can signify that special “Melbourne Moment”, but would it be unique to Melbourne? A few thoughts that came to mind were the trams in the city, bicycles and the dedicated cycling lanes, people just relaxing on the grass patch just outside the state library, or even (being the tennis fan that I am) capturing Melbourne Park, the home of Rod Laver Arena where many great tennis matches were held and also many more great live events took place.

In the end, I decided to go with the bicycles for simple reasons. One being how many cyclists I see on the road everyday. People cycling for various reasons, cross training, commuting, exercising, or just for the fun of it. Being an avid cyclist myself back home, most people either fall in separate categories, either you cycle or you don’t. However here, people do it to get to work, to go to school, to train for their next cycling event. Adding to that, the roads, weather and maybe people, makes it so conducive for doing so. I simply admire just the vast number of people choosing cycling as their mode of transport daily. Just makes me feel like getting on a bike to join them.

As the saying goes “A picture paints a thousand words”, however for this instance, unfortunately the picture I took on my phone, does not justify how much cyclists and their bicycles has been so intricately woven into being that “Melbourne Moment”.