On Your Bike

I love cycling. It’s such a clean and healthy way to get around and a nice way to exercise, too. I don’t think it’s that good for your health to smoke and eat fatty foods while you are cycling, though. That’s why I was amused by this article on the BBC News website. It seems like Russell Crowe must still be pretty quick even though he smokes!

There were some great expressions in this article, too. The first is in the title where it Crowe tells Annette Sharp to get on her bike. In this case, it means to get on her bike and start cycling however we often use it as a way to tell someone to go away. We could say “on your bike” meaning, ‘go away’ or ‘leave, now’.

The next interesting word is when the race between Crowe and Sharp is called a ‘duel‘. A ‘duel‘ is a race or competition with just two people.

Further on in the article, Crowe is quoted telling Sharp:

you are twice the man Baz Luhrmann is on a bicycle

When he uses the phrase ‘twice the man‘ here, he mans that the reporter’s cycling ability is two times better than Baz Luhrmann’s.

The next interesting expression is further on in the article where Sharp is quoted as saying:

When you make a living throwing stones you expect that one day someone is going to lob one back.

When she says ‘throwing stones‘ here, she means making comments (usually negative) about other people. There is a common English idiom ‘he who lives in a glass house should not throw stones‘ meaning don’t criticise other people if you are also vulnerable to criticism.

Today’s photo is by Patrick Nijhuis.