Throwing e-bikes now part of the mating ritual for young men on their way to afters in Bondi.

Nature’s courtship runs amok, Darwin and his theory has something to answer for.

From exotic dances to colourful displays, humans and other animals have relied on mating rituals since time immemorial. And it appears that 21st-century Sydney makes no exception.

In fact, evolution has come so far as to say adieu to the classic handkerchief drop or the simple gesture of opening the door for another. Only the toughest survive in the harsh, post-COVID climate of our world. As male loneliness peaks at an all-time high, new and creative tactics have emerged to preserve the fruit of said loins.

Nowadays, the yardstick for strength, superiority, and biological viability is based on how far you can throw an e-bike.

Those between the ages of 18 to 25 years will be no strangers to this seemingly bizarre phenomenon. Especially those with parents wealthy enough to have family homes in suburbs that offer e-bike services. After all, rent is dead money. Ask any one of them, and a handful would exclaim that they, too, recently participated in this shot-put contest last Friday night. Why? Consider it a pastime to distract oneself on the walk from Ravesis to that Brazilian guy’s place who is far too old and drunk to be hosting an after-party.

What’s better? Throw it far enough, and you might just score yourself a root.

One in ten women in said age bracket claim they would be more likely to sleep with someone who’d thrown an e-bike at least five meters*. It appears that in an age of automated sliding doors and narrowing gender wage gaps, there are fewer and fewer ways to discern true strength in the male form.

*This statistic has been falsified for dramatic purposes.

One might regard there to be one key challenge to the efficacy of this ritual. That being the impact it has on anyone who has already borne children or, alternatively, not looking to inbreed within the Eastern suburbs private school community.

Currently, there are over 160,000 trips done on share e-bikes in the city of Sydney each month. And while this might afford plenty of mating opportunities, many also believe it to have wreaked havoc amongst sidewalks, flowerbeds, and overall suburban sightliness. Sydney Mayor Clover Moore herself has commented on the need to better regulate e-bikes, which not only proves an eyesore but a potential safety and accessibility hazard on sidewalks.

The question, Sydney, is why we are so astutely regulated when it comes to parking and stopping zones, but drop all courtesy in the e-bike realm? Should the mega-corps owning these bikes take responsibility for their proper management, or does the Council step in and regulate the territory? Local councils assume the risk of being sued multi-millions of dollars if one trips on an uneven pathway. An e-bike strewn across a pathway, on a road, in a tree? Nada.

Something doesn’t add up, and until then, I say let the strong and anti-disestablishmentarian blokes of this world swing those pedals.