Wednesday, June 2, 2010

My bicycle.

As a child, (don't worry they won't all be stories of my youth) I loved to get on my bike and ride. I'd pedal my little heart out all over the place. This was always great for me, painful for my family.


In the beginning I had a cool black and orange bike with training wheels. At first they seemed like a crutch holding me back until the day I discovered how you could get stuck on the curb at the end of the driveway and turn the bike into a stationary bike. For some reason I found this very amusing and entertaining for a long time... well until I discovered you could put a pile of dirt under the back tire when doing this and create a fun messy dust cloud. This was the best ever until the joy of what happens when that pile of dirt is actually mud! 


Then the day came that the training wheels came off. No my mom and dad didn't decide I was ready and take them off for me. I saw a wrench and thought, "Hey, I wonder what it's like to NOT have them one my bike!" several hours later my family is combing the quite suburb where I grew up for a little kid tearing through the place like a bird let out of a cage. I was free baby! Free to ride like the wind! Free to explore the streets and see just what kind of action this town had. Granted I was like 4 or 5 years old at the time, but man I was ready to see the world!


Starting that day and for the next few years there was a pattern. I would run out, get on my bike and many hours later my brother would find me at some kids house many streets away from where I was suppose to be. All the time my mom would turn to him and say, "Go get your friends and find out where he is today!" They figured I was lost or something, I knew how to get back home! I just  made the mistake of not keeping track of time and not heading home before the dogs where let loose to bring me in. It was just all so exciting! All the different houses and all the new kids to meet and play with! Each day I had no idea where the open road would take me but there was a new adventure every time! Well, until the hail storm...


The last time I can remember venturing out and failing to come home on time, my brother was once again sent out to find me. I had no idea how he came across me that day for I was pretty far out. He told me in so many words to get my...um... backside home before our mother permanently...uh... well you get the idea. I was in deep that day. Well I said good bye to new friends and then it started to rain. My brother harped about biking as fast as we could. Then the wind picked up and it felt like pedaling the bike meant nothing for forward momentum. And if painful large rain drops and high winds weren't enough (while being in big trouble for I was more worried about facing mom than whatever the sky was doing that day) it started to hail! I could barely see my brother racing down the street in front of me, though I could hear him yelling out a string of profanities that would make a drunken sailor blush just fine. Until that moment I didn't think pain was a real thing. I mean I got hurt lots of times before that day but normally I would shake it off and go back to what I was doing. Biking in a hail storm was probably the only time in my life pain out did the need to crack jokes at everything. (To people who know me, this is a big thing!) Needless to say we got the sh** smacked out of us, over and over and over. Oh sure... we could have stopped and hid under a tree or something until it passed, but we both knew something more powerful than mother nature beating us like a drum... we knew mom was mad and waiting! Would I ever ride my bike through a hail storm ever again? Heck no! That's got to be the dumbest thing anyone could do. Would I do it if my mother was ticked off and expecting me to magically appear no matter what? In a heart beat! She's a little Italian woman! And no one can yell like little Italian women! I'll take the hail over that any day.


It was really not a surprise when the hail stopped and the sun came out the same moment we got home. Of course it did. Mother nature probably saw the look on my mother's face and decided to back off until my mom cooled off! I can't remember just what was said, it seemed more like a large dinosaur screaming at the time. But I do remember being a heck of a lot better at getting home on my own after that. 


But did that stop me from my adventures? Heh...


Me and my bike continued to tear up the roads after that. It has always been me and my bike VS the world out there! All the times I would challenge other kids to races and laughed all the way across the finish line yelling back at the losers, "Did you forget how to pedal that thing?" All the times I would tell some bully just how stupid he was just so I could laugh at how frustrated he was at not being able to catch up to me. All the times they would set up traps to catch me and I on my trusty steed would zoom on through with lighting quickness!


As I got older I got more daring, doing bike tricks and jumping off stuff, over stuff, through stuff... 


I got my first ten speed from a friend of mine and began racing long distances around the big park reserve that we lived by like I was on some cross country race. At fifteen I got my permit to start learning how to drive, by sixteen I was choosing riding my bike over getting my drivers license because if I couldn't bike there, then it wasn't worth going. I would bike the long distance to my first real job at a restaurant.  Heck when I graduated school, some people got cars, I got a new bike!


Almost a year after high school my folks got me my first car. It was beat down and rusty but it was a thing of beauty! Suddenly I didn't know what a bike was... it remained set aside for years.


Now I'm in my thirties. Married with two great kids. My bike, not holding up so well as we all start doing family bike rides to get back in to shape. Driving a car for all those years apparently has left me more round than I used to be with the kung-fu grip of a new born child! Stupid muscles! With my bike in poor condition (amazing how it can break down from LACK of use) the wife and I buy ourselves new bikes!


The new bike is a thing of beauty. Riding it is like being that little kid throwing off the training wheels for the first time! Once again I'm free! Free to tear down the roads of this town just to see where the wind will take me! That little hell-raiser on two wheels is back!


That was two weeks ago...


Today, my legs are killing me! It's hard to walk up and down stairs for my knees are too weak to want to. Advil is my closest friend... Stupid old body...


So now I'm off to pop some more Advil, argue with my legs that they will be used again and they can whine all they want too. My bike is calling me! I've biked through hail storms! I've lived though the yelling Italian dinosaur! My bitchy stiff sore legs will just have to deal with it because I got a bike to ride, and I can't wait to see where it takes me this time!


Gah! My legs really hurt... maybe my bike will call me after I soak in a hot bath... stupid whiny legs...


You didn't ask what was on my mind, but I told you anyway.


--Drew



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