For Odette and me growing up, bikes equaled independence. I remember hurtling down from a loading ramp and almost getting smooshed by a car. I remember taking the coaster brake apart and reassembling it just for fun. I had a paper route from age eleven to fourteen and rode about ten miles a day in all weather. I remember country roads and cross country descents on big balloon tires. I felt like I had really arrived when I got a five-speed Schwin with drop handlebars. I rode that thing to work at a drug store after school every night for four years. Odette talks about getting on her bike and being away from home all day and having to learn her surroundings all over again when she learned to drive because they looked different from that vantage point than she knew them from her bike.
It was different for Will. We didn't let him play in the street and we were afraid that he would fall off and hurt his head. Will didn't learn to ride a bike until he was eleven when I bribed him with something. A couple of years later I bribed him to ride the STP with me. We rode about 1,500 miles to train for it and that may have been a little much. Now Will says he doesn't like biking. He puts "no biking" signs all over the house. He is really obnoxious when I make him ride and complains that I don't wait, that I go too fast, and that I run red lights - all of which are true.
Here are our biking stories:
Road bikes
Mountain bikes
Will's mountain bike
Tandem
Gearing
Handlebar bags
Seat bags
Cyclometers
Heart rate monitors
Water bottle carrier
Route descriptions
Trail descriptions
Gmaps pedometer