Out For A Ride
I was back near the land of my birth one time, visiting places I had once played in. This land had been the grounds of a hunting lodge when there were far fewer people and far more open country than now. The hunting lodge faded away sometime when I wasn’t paying attention and was taken over as a metropolitan park. Hiking/biking trails now wind through the woods and along the lake where I had once enjoyed skinny-dipping with certain friends.
Can’t do that now …
And I must have been immune to the mosquitos back then … or they’re newcomers.
So I was wandering around the paths – observing remnants of fences that I had once crossed over (the lodge grounds were private), mostly cut-off pieces now grown into what were once saplings, now mature oaks and maples..
These girls came up over the hill and stopped when they saw me coming the other way. We talked a bit, I took this photo, and we went on our ways … I’m sure I was gone from their minds by the time they got to the bottom of the hill; myself at least thinking of the time when I’d have been of an age to want to get to know them in a completely different manner than I feel now.
My neighbor got a mountain bike a month ago. He hasn’t had a bike in over 30 years. He’s a few years younger than me.
He said it was the most uncomfortable thing he ever seen. Handlebars too low and made him put too much weight on his hands. Seat had zero padding and killed his ass bones. And the pedals seemed small, feet slipped off of them.
So he bought a better padded seat, higher handlebars (and longer gear and brake cables) and bigger pedals. Now you can’t him off the thing. Said he’s gonna put an odometer on it to see how far he goes. He also might put wider tires/wheels on it.
I might look into this as I too haven’t been on a bike in many years – yes, maybe 30.
I wonder if they make snow tires? heh
I used to love Beach Cruisers.
I need to put tires on my mountain bike. I used to ride, but haven’t for years. My bike was a Verizon promotion. Switch phone companies and get a free cell phone or a bike and I already had an analog cell phone.
I’ve had my bike for….**checks calendar, does math**….going on 40 years. Its a mountain bike and in it’s day, was a pretty good one…I think that the frame is made of cast iron. If I recall, I bought it at the BX for $200 or so.
I’ve never really ridden it much. I had a bike because my kids had bikes. Their bikes are now long gone, but the lovely Mrs.* and I still have ours, mainly because we now have grandkids. We also have bikes in the garage (read: “cluttering”) for the grandkids. Half of the grandkids are a couple’o thousand miles away in Ohio, and are more apt to outgrow their bikes than they are to ride them. While we see the Arizona grandkids more frequently, they haven’t ridden their bikes in a year plus….busy doing other things.
This is all a long way of saying that I’ve decided that I’m past being someone who rides a bike. I’m closer to 70 than 60, and while I’m reasonably fit, I also think that riding a bike at my age seems like a good way to fall and break something unnecessarily.
*The lovely Mrs. has an artificial knee and has even less reason to ever get on her bike.
As always, YMMV.
You’re probably right. But I haven’t outgrown my dumbass phase yet.
uh oh. Here we go.
In 1982, a month after we were married, I bought DH his first ever bike. Bult for a man with shorter legs it fit him perfectly. A nice skinny titanium frame TREX. Neither myself nor the young boy who sold it to me understood what “titanium” meant. DH rode it the few blocks to work every day for two years. We were living in Lubbock which as you all probably know is very,very FLAT! The only problem was the drifting dirt and wind. Going on bike rides together around town to the movies, grocery stores, etc.was so much fun for us.
Then we moved to the top of a mountain in downtown Seattle and put both of our bikes away. That was in 1987. Put the bikes away and never used them again. Mine was sold off, but his was put in storage for years. We finally got home to Montana in 2011 and the next summer we took out his bike and had the seat and tapes and tires replaced. Essentially renewing the entire bike. Brought it home and DH took it out for his first ride– down the driveway, across the street, made a left turn on the road in front of the house. He was coming across the street back toward the house when he hit the curb at the edge of the driveway. Whoops! Total length of ride maybe one minute.
He came into the house streaming blood with a deep gash(almost deep enough for the ER). Blood streaming everywhere. Thank G*d he always keeps our first aid kit fully stocked so I was able to shore up the bleeding, and get it bandaged.
Two weeks later it was a big ugly red scar just barely scabbed over and about four inches long when he went to Germany for a small conference. Each person at the table was a Ph.D. expert in their field and DH was invited speaker. It was a summer conference so DH wore a short sleeve shirt on that day. Toward the end of the conference one of the Germans asked him what caused the scar: “shark bite” he replied with absolute straight face!
We held onto the bike for four more years and finally donated it to a charity.
End of bike story, except. . .
I still grieve for our shared rides around the back streets of town.
I forgot to mention that he was about 45 pounds heavier (around the middle) when he got on that bike for the last time! 🙂