Bicycles

I'm a bicycle fan. I've been into them since I was 8 or so, when I first learned to ride without training wheels. I couldn't go very far, as my neighborhood wasn't that big. You could do laps to get tired, but it hardly amounted to much. There was no satisfaction. Later, when I upgraded from a basic banana seat bike to a 10 speed, the height of high technology back in the 70's, with handlebar brakes (front AND rear) rather than pedal brake (rear only), I started to get into the maintenance side of things. Dad showed me about tire pressures and how to true the wheels and how to adjust the brakes so they both worked well, and how to lube the bearings. It was good stuff for a pre-teen kid to get into.

When I got older, and braver, I started to bike out onto the actual road, carefully because everybody went at highway speeds (55 mph) and you could get killed out there. I learned to bike up a certain mountain road, and saw many things I had never seen before in my small neighborhood.

I eventually grew too large for the bike frame and upgraded to my Dad's fancy racing 12 speed. 12 gears, with clips-pedals. It was cutting edge. The frame was refined. The shifters were on the forward downtube. It felt like I was in "Breaking Away". "Refund. REFUND!!"

I had to raise the seat way up because my legs are a lot longer than my Dad's legs. I learned to take advantage of the twitchiness of the race bike. I learned to ride it in traffic to college. That was fun. Terrifying fun. In and out of traffic. There's a madness of youth, particularly where exercise is involved. I can totally understand how a 20-yo can kill himself at 140 mph on a motorcycle. Your reaction times are faster than everyone else. You breathe in and out and see EVERYTHING around you. A twitch here, a twist there, and you are an immortal, right up until you misjudge a corner and fly flat into a tree or off an embankment and find out whether there's a God or not, for real. I never did any of those things. I did pass cars on the right, in the bike lane, and get yelled at, either encouragement or "get off da rode!" from a more serious jackass once. Mostly encouragement. Passing cars at stoplights is hilarious, btw. Especially when you do it 3 times in a row.

In college I took this racing bike on tour, in Napa Valley from Calistoga down to Saint Helena, wine tasting a month before my 21st. I was such a rebel! I got a little tipsy on a 101'F day and biked back up Silverado trail in the heat shortly after running out of water. If you've never drunk wine, its very dehydrating. Delicious, but dehydrating. Noah drank wine. So did Sampson. So did a lot of biblical figures. God forgives a great deal for wine drinking. So did Bacchus, god of Wine. It was a one-day trip and I'd never done that before. I had a good time, and bonded with my new classmates in Geology. Good people. I still think so.

At the end of college, I put down my hard earned at Costco and bought myself a mountain bike for $209 including tax. 21 speeds. I couldn't believe it. A bike I could pedal up ANY hill, no matter how steep. It was an inch small vertically, but that just made it more agile. No suspension, mind you. A hard-tail steel frame. No bouncing forks. This is a SERIOUS bike for experienced riders only, none of this frou-frou suspension nonsense for beginners. Your body is the suspension: "What are your legs? Springs. Steel springs. What are they gonna do? Hurl me down the track!" Sorry, Gallipoli flashback.

I rode that bike all over a mountain with cobblestones, literal cobblestones that were quarried for the streets of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake, all over its dirt roads and past lakes and though forest groves. I learned to dodge and jump those rocks. I learned to ride in wet and dry, mostly dry because it didn't have disc brakes. Now, being older and wiser, I would get a full suspension with front disc brakes. That bike was great on the gravel and dirt, though. I could hop a curb and not fall down. 26 inch wheels, knobby tires. Good times.

After moving up into the mountains, there's precious few places worth riding it. This really isn't a very parklike place despite all the trees. They're doing something about this, of course. The Immigrant Trail parkway will eventually offer some great riding opportunities. I am looking forward to the trails opening for that.

When I returned to the Bay Area I put slick tires on my mountain bike and curved handlebars. It became a commuter and I gained about 5 mph with the tires. It went from buzzy to smooth. I added a fender and rack too. A good call, though the rack deserves some bungie cords. The fender is nice though. Its elegant, how I did it, looks like it belongs there.

When I look at my bike today, I see a few areas for improvement but essentially I have something that looks good enough to buy. I'd love to add built in lights, with charging that only runs when I'm NOT pedaling so its not slowing me down and will mostly work when going downhill. That would be a cute trick, actually. I should look into making that happen. It is my love of bicycles which makes me think seriously about scooters.

I've only been on a scooter once and REALLY LIKED IT. It was the worst ever made too, an Indian Bajaj underbone scooter, with an upgraded 70cc gutless oil smoking engine and barely 2 horsepower, top speed of 28 mph wide open throttle. It was still wonderful fun. I can see something a bit better being popular here. 125cc, better suspension, able to pull up a hill and actually stop when you pull on the brake lever. One of those. There's a used bike shop, with no scooters. There's a new motorcycle and scooter shop for Honda over by the supermarket. I haven't dealt with them yet. Might buy from them, once I have a job and a motorcycle license. I can see the Piaggio Fly 150 being my kind of machine.

Enough to do the job, climb up the local roads and not fall over in a pothole. Reliable engine strong enough to pull a hill without you needing to hop off and push. A working headlight. Room under the seat to store your helmet. That kind of thing.

This is the step up from my old salad days of trying not to be run over on my 10 speed on that mountain road. All so I could turn around from the top and hit 50 mph down a really steep spot through a redwood grove. I was such a fool. There is a separate God for drunks and children, so they say. Might be something to that.