I don’t know what your history has been with bicycles. I think most of us have ridden one at various times and places. When I was about five, our family found a fat tired model during a walk in the woods. We took it home and I thought we were set (although I wasn’t big enough to ride it) but my mom insisted that we call the police. We did, and they said they would take it to the station and try to find the owner. They tried to make it fit in the trunk of their cruiser, but quickly realized it wouldn’t fit. So they gave it to us, but even I could see the bike would fit easily. The police were making a gift to us, and I was very happy.
After we moved to Fairfax, I learned to ride the big bike by the time-honored method of having someone run alongside me and hold the bike up. One time my uncle (who lived with us them for a while) was running alongside me holding on to the seat when suddenly he let go, leaving me on my own. I circled the yard, imploring him to come back until I tired and navigated into one of my mom’s bushes. Everyone found this very funny, except for me. And my mom.
I eventually learned to ride that machine and graduated to what we called an “English racer,” a bike made in England (go figure) with three speeds. I thought that was cool, and make the bike even cooler by taking the fenders off. I thought this would reduce the weigh of the apparatus and increase my speed, but it didn’t.
When we moved to a farm in Loudoun County, I didn’t think that much about bikes, preferring to think about cars. I got my license and had driven a few years when I decided to save the earth and buy another bike in 1971 with my first paycheck from my first real job. It had ten speeds and was extremely fast and light.
I still have that bike in my shed. I don’t go into the shed much anymore, but I had occasion to get some African violet fertilizer and potting soil for Becky and when I opened the shed, there lay my ten speed. I hadn’t ridden it since I narrowly missed running into a fire hydrant one day. That memory made me realize that my cycling days are over unless I use a senior tricycle, but I’m too vain for that.
The point of all this is that changes come to us all, and we can resist them (generally to no avail) or we can accept them and move on. I’m okay with that except if the change involves an adult tricycle.
Biscuit City 