Let’s Go Ride Bikes

An ode to the bicycle.

I went for bike ride this past weekend.

Summer in our part of the Midwest usually features plenty of hot weather, with super high humidity levels to match. The kind of weather that instantly causes your hair to curl up, and your glasses to get steamy the minute you step outside.

At least those are the two side effects I usually experience.

Hot, humid, and steamy doesn’t make going outside too enticing, but I’ve found that even on the most uncomfortable summer days I can hop on my bike and ride my favorite shady trail without too much discomfort. The dappled sunlight streaming through the trees above, the crunch of the gravel below, the hum of the tires, and the steady cadence of the pedaling puts me into sort of a rhythm.

Moving along the trail generates my own breeze, and it feels pretty good. When the movement stops — that’s when the sweat starts dripping.

Here are a few seconds of my most recent outing, to set the scene…

Sometimes I’ll pop in my AirPods and find something to listen to. But this time it felt better to just give my mind some room to wander — to let my brain decompress. As I was riding, my thoughts drifted from one thing to another…

What should we have for dinner?

Wait, what time is it? I should turn around in about thirty minutes.

I need to remember to start a load of laundry when I get back.

Eventually, when I settled in, and when my thoughts settled down, I found myself just enjoying the sensation of moving along. The sense of freedom that a bike provides. I started to recall all of the bikes I‘ve ridden in the past, and how many memories I have that involve pedaling on two wheels.

My very first bike was black, with white and gold trim. I’m sure it was tiny, because I would have been four years old. Maybe five? I pedaled around with training wheels for a while, trying to keep up with my older brother. Things really clicked when I learned to balance, and ride it for real, on my own.

Credit goes to my mom on this one. I clearly remember her taking my training wheels off, giving me a little pep talk, a slight nudge down the gentle incline in our front yard, and running along behind me.

It didn’t take long. A couple of falls into the soft grass, and I soon got the hang of it.

As my brothers and I got older, our bikes got bigger, and so did our perimeter. We grew up on a gravel road. Our house was situated in the middle of our family farm, surrounded by acres and acres of corn and soybean fields. Our two cousins (and my aunt and uncle) lived about a quarter mile down the road.

As kids a common phrase was, “Let’s go ride bikes!” The five of us — myself, my two brothers, and our cousins — had a big playground. We were a gang of kids on bikes. Think Stranger Things, or The Goonies, except we weren’t being chased by supernatural beings, or searching for lost pirate treasure. Instead, we were pedaling down the grass pathways between cornfields to go fishing. Or we were swimming in the lake on our farm, and jumping off of the “raft” we made out of old seed pallets.

Pedaling a little further down the road we could get to the creek that passed through our farm. This is a whole other story, but here is where we bushwhacked trails through the trees with our hatchet, and built “bridges” spanning the creek to get to our “fort.”

We had a lot of room to ride, and our bikes took us there.

I don’t know who suggested it first, but one day, we decided to ride our bikes to Grandma’s house.

Maybe it was my dad’s idea. He’s an adventurous type. I could imagine him talking it up real big, comparing it to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and then sending us off on our way. Or maybe it was our idea. I don’t remember, but it seemed like a really huge deal. Grandma lived probably about eight or nine miles away. Quite a distance for a gang of seven to ten year olds on small single gear bikes.

We packed up our backpacks with snacks and water, received the safety talk, and the don’t leave anyone behind talk, and we set out. Our route was to take the “back roads.” Which meant gravel the entire way, and little to no traffic.

Over the hills and through the woods, to Grandma’s house we went. Literally.

We felt SO independent.

I wish I could remember how much time that first trip took us. I’m sure there were many stops. I’m guessing we’d have to pause every now and then to catch our breath —because what does an eight year old know about pacing — to drink some water, to eat our snacks, and probably to have an argument that went something like this:

“You’re going too fast! I can’t keep up!”

“No I’m not!”

“Yes you are! Dad said we have to stay together!”

“We ARE together!”

“Uhhh! Sloooow doooown!”

The biggest hill of the journey came right at the end, just before we got to Grandma’s. It was the most challenging obstacle for our short tired legs. But we made it. The entire way, all of us together. We were just fine.

And Grandma was thrilled to see us.

We were triumphant! It felt like such an adventure. And it was, for that time in our lives. In actuality, we knew almost everyone who lived in each farmhouse we passed along the way. If we’d had any trouble we could have knocked on any door we came to and help would have been there. Dad gave us a long head start and followed behind in the pickup truck, acting as the sweep vehicle in case there was any mishaps, or tired legs, and to haul our bikes back home after our big expedition.

After that first trip it became a ride that we would repeat over and over for the next several years. Grandma always knew we were coming, Dad always followed along behind, and there were always grape “sodies” waiting for us in the fridge.

As we got older there were other bike adventures. Bigger bikes, longer rides, stronger legs, farther from home.

When I went away to college my bike went with me. It was during these years that it became a functional form of transportation. My six roommates and I shared a large old house on a brick paved street, just a block off campus. We would hop on our bikes to get to class, or over to the quad, or to meet up with friends.

It was quick and efficient. And fun.

At one point my roommate Kristi’s beloved bike got stolen, right from our backyard.

Not cool.

As luck would have it, a couple weeks later as she was leaving the campus rec center, she spotted it. There it was. Parked right outside the main entrance, locked to a bike rack. So, what did she do? She sat down next to it, on a sort of a steak out, waiting for the criminal to come and get it.

She told us the tale later that day around our dining room table. I don’t remember all of the details, but it was quite dramatic.

Long story short…she got her bike back.

My roommates and I would go on longer rides together too. Just a few blocks from our house we could access the MKT Trail — an old railroad line that the city converted into a cycling and running path. It stretches all the way through town, outside the city limits, over a bunch of old bridges, passing through farmland, and some forested areas until it finally connects to the Katy Trail — the granddaddy of bike trails. The Katy Trail follows the banks of the Missouri River, spanning the entire state of Missouri for 240 miles from west to east.

I remember at least one time, we rode all the way down to the river, and then upstream quite a distance to a little river town. We got a bite to eat, rested for a while, and refueled for the long ride home. It was ambitious of us, a long day. After we made it back, laying in the grass in our front yard, our bikes dropped all around us, we felt proud and exhausted.

It was one of those rides with some funny glitches that frequently gets brought back up again.

“Remember that time we went on that long ride, and within the first ten minutes Kristi’s water bottle bounced out of its holder, she RAN OVER IT, and it EXPLODED?”

(Hi Jenny, Hi Kristi! Miss you!)

My current bicycle is a Redline Conquest. You may know the Redline name as the maker of BMX bikes — the ones for trick riding in halfpipes and skate parks. Or maybe, like me, you didn’t know this, but it’s what the guy at the bike shop told you.

Do not be fooled. I’m not doing any jumps, flips, or spins.

I do not have a BMX bike.

At one point, Redline was making what is called a cyclocross bike, which is sort of a cross between a road bike and a mountain bike. This is what I have. It’s a little bit fast, but with some ruggedness that makes it nice for riding gravel and trails. It seems like now they are just called gravel bikes. The history, or the Redline name, doesn’t mean too much to me, but I’ve been riding it for a bunch of years, and I love it.

I’m not a serious cyclist by any means, but an hour or two of riding here and there does a lot for me. It’s a nice antidote to sitting at my drawing desk and looking at a screen, which I do more of than I probably should.

A couple of weeks ago I dropped off my bike at my local bike shop for a tune up, and all of the hip and knowledgeable bike guys in the service department told me it’s a “really sick bike.”

Cool. That’s good to know.

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