If you spend a lot of your day combing through stock photos, you start to see trends. One trend I’ve recently noticed: None of the women represented in stock images knows how to ride a bike.
They know how to stand next to a bike. They know how to flop on the ground next to a bike. They know how to stare wistfully at a bike. But when push comes to shove, very few of these slender white women (oh, yeah — they’re also alllllll white) know how to actually pedal around on one.
So what’s really going on with these confused-looking waifs who happen to stumble upon velocipedes in the middle of the forest or a field or on the frightening Venice boardwalk? Hopefully these captions will help to tell their story.
“You can do it, Chiara. You can do it,” the young model whispered to herself. She had lied and told the boss at Moonface and Pleather Modeling Agency that she could ride a bike. That’s how she booked the job
What was she supposed to do when she was asked? Tell them the truth? That she had recently had new legs sewed on and that they were still a little shaky? They would have fired her on the spot.
“No one’s stupid enough to try and ride a bicycle after getting new legs sewn on” was said so often at the agency that it had become the unofficial office motto. It was true — no one was stupid enough…Well, no one except Chiara.
She was going to prove everyone wrong.