Hang Nine and bikes

I have been asked why I don’t get a bike and why I don’t embrace cycling a bit more.  I will admit that I have a bit of apprehension at the entry cost.  I was recently advised that I could get in a decent low end bike for about 1000 bucks.  That just seems steep to me.  Yeah, I recognize that I spend money on other stuff, but I am not ready to swallow that bigger pill.  Yet.

But probably just as much is that I SUCK on a bike.  I don’t mean in terms of performance.  That is obvious.  I don’t bike much so I should not expect to clip in and ride at 25 mph.  I mean that I suck in terms of coordination.  I am ridiculously uncoordinated. 

I had a paper route as a kid.  Afternoon paper delivery and so I had the big baskets on the back of the bike filled with papers.  It was probably 50 houses, over 5 or 6 miles, and about 3 miles from my house.  I was 12, and it was a little bit of an ass kicker at the time.  Anyway, one day I am heading out to the last house on the route and this young attractive also 12 year old lady goes biking the other way.  I recognized her from school (it was Junior High then kids), and so she gave me a polite “hi.”  Of course, in the mind of a 12 year old, or my 12 year old mind this was an invite for additional conversation.  I biked as hard as I could to the last house, delivered that last paper by hucking it to the front porch and then set off like a demon in an attempt to catch her.  What I would say when I got there, no clue – but I am sure my yellow 3 speed with the Auntie Em baskets would have been a significant woo factor.

I spotted her about a quarter mile up on the long road and doubled my effort.  As I did, I shifted to the all so powerful warp drive THIRD gear and pushed harder on the pedals.  The chain slipped however and that is when I made a pretty crucial mistake.  I looked down at the chain, and tried to back pedal to get it to recatch.  I slipped into the side gutter of the road, loss control of the bike and smacked it dead on to a fire hydrant that magically appeared in front of me.  I went flying over the handle bars, smacking my body into a telephone pole just past the hydrant.  I must have slid down the pole like Wiley E Coyote to the ground.

The girl never saw any of this.  As I looked up, through sweat, dirt, blood and tar from the pole, I could see her biking off into the distance.  The home owner who lived adjacent to this scene came running out of her home, as she had heard the crash and claimed she thought there had been a car accident.  The bike was a complete wreck and it took some effort to pull it off the hydrant as the wheel had collapsed in a funky way around it.  I was bleeding in several places.  She let me call my mother who came and picked me up.

When my father got home, he wanted to know what had happened.  I was not going to explain to him that I was chasing some girl, and so I told him I hit a patch of sand and lost control of the bike.  He turned the whole thing into some sort of investigation and went out to the scene of the “crime” where – of course – there was not a lick of sand anywhere to be found. 

I ended up walking most of the paper route thereafter for a bit until I saved up for a new bike. 

So biking might not be my thing.  And there are several additional bike stories like this in my past.