Say what you will about Mike Selik, but he falls like a champ and he, like many other Atlantans, are proud of their bikes.

My near collision with Mr. Selik (his fault) was the only mishap we encountered riding bicycles for the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign in the 2009 Pride Parade. Other than that, it was all literally and figuratively flowers and rainbows.

The plan was to arrange in a row Roy G. Biv-clad riders, each sporting as monochromatically as possible wardrobe embracing his/her/transgender’s respective letter. Some riders dropped out, some came on; we picked up two free radical all-color cyclists. Though the vision changed, the crowd responded amazingly well: they loved bikes.

An aside: it is tempting, based on this experience, to declare, “Atlanta’s gay community loves bikes!” as Atlanta’s gay community always is almost certainly in rapturous favor of everything fun, like bicycles, and righteously (and rightfully) opposed to things destructive or disruptive to its culture. During Pride, though, that natural affinity for fun and frolic outshined anything bad. Our hometown homosexual heroes even impressively ignored the chanting fundamentalists with whom they stood shoulder to shoulder along Peachtree and 10th streets.

We went out and rode between two powerhouse paraders: the Humane Society’s gay adopters, sipping from mimosa-loaded Bubba Kegs and trying, and nearly succeeding in, charming us into adopting sleepy puppies by sciencing us with puppy eyes; Emory University’s gay community and Safe Space, with a rainbow-trailing, booty-shaking eagle; and Florida’s ROTC, the Righteously Outrageous Twirling Corps, which wowed us with new meaning in color guard.

And while we wowed over these fellows and again wowed at the crowd: they loved bikes. We rode to the sides, handing out Share the Road bumper stickers, and they actually clamored for more. More?? Here: take! I stopped and had a brief conversation with one gay commuter, who told me he was the only person who rides to work. “Give it to a co-worker,” I suggested. “Or slap it on someone else’s car.”

The space between Emory and ROTC opened up when the latter stopped to twirl (and, brother, did they ever), and we had the opportunity to ride our bikes back and forth, up and down, and that’s when we really saw smiles, not merely from the spectators but from the other cyclists.

How often do you find yourself in the saddle and more than half a block of Peachtree standing still for you? When was the last – when might be the next – time you and your pals spin figure-eights, giant loops and engage in criss-cross daredeviltry on that signature street? We even picked up along the way Rebecca Serna, who marched along with us in a I BIKE ATL t-shirt and pushing our unofficial mascot: her son.

We all brandished Atlanta Bicycle Coalition signage on our rides, but along the route thought of great slogans, perhaps to be used next year but suitable for any time:

“Get your bikes out of the closet!”

“There’s no PRIDE without RIDE!”

“Put the fun between your legs!”

“Bikes are SO gay.”

And though we rung our bells, though we zipped and zoomed and buzzed the crowd (and endured more than a few good-natured, but highly suggestive, cat calls), though we touted and shouted to paraders bikes’ praises, they raised prideful calls to drown them all, surprisingly straightforward but no less satisfying:

“Yay, bikes!”

That’s it. Simple as that. Our gay community knows how to get behind something (pun intended), and nothing could be nicer than hearing them shout to us during Pride, over and over, again and again, all up and down the strip, simply and proudly, “Yay, bikes!”

They’re folks of whom we are proud, and their patronage, too, is something about which we also should be proud.