Get a bicycle,” Mark Twain once said. “You will not regret it if you live.”
The day that social necessity forced me to learn to ride a bicycle, my world expanded exponentially.
If I had not risked and learned that day, while all the boys were zipping around on two wheels in the town where I was visiting a friend, then I would have spent that day confined to the house with the old folks. I could no more play with the boys than a wingless goose could fly south.
But I did learn with their patient coaxing, coaching and catching. And that day, I discovered the freedom of exploration, the power of personal propulsion and the whimsical caress of wind.
You learn how to ride a bicycle in a single moment. It may take hours to reach that moment, but you learn to ride the instant you resist the urge to stick your leg out to keep from falling and instead push hard on the pedal to give yourself a surge of momentum that forever implants in your DNA the instinctive ability to stay upright.
Writer and rider Bill Strickland says human beings were born knowing how to ride a bicycle, so we don’t “learn” how, we just remember. “Scientists cannot explain how a bicycle stays upright,” he said. “There are too many forces and variables. We can shoot a metal can across our solar system, but there are not enough mathematical formulas to explain how a 6-year-old child rides a bike.”
I gave each of my children a bicycle on his or her fifth birthday. Teaching the first one to ride on a grassy slope at the local park, I ran along beside him, holding the seat while he turned the pedals and begged me to hold tight. I promised him I wouldn’t let go — and then I did.
I held my spot at the moment I released him and listened to him ride away, still unaware that he was moving under his own power, warning me to keep hanging on. Eventually, 100 yards down the way, he realized I was no longer beside him and fell over. But he looked back to where I stood, measured his progress by the beacon of my smile, and he cheered himself delirious.
Last Christmas, 26 years later, I rode closely behind him, clinging to his wheel as he broke the chilly wind for me, and I remembered the day he learned — or remembered — how to ride. Last summer, his brother and I rode 500 miles in RAGBRAI (The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa), and I’ve already made a date with my oldest grandson to do it in 2021, when he turns 14.
Cycling has been a part of my life since that summer day I learned to ride to keep from being left behind by my friends. When our children were little, my wife and I each rode with one in a seat over the back wheel, while the oldest rode on his own.
Author William Saroyan called the bicycle “the noblest invention of mankind.” While I hesitate to put a bicycle above the printing press or ice cream, riding a bicycle on a quiet street or a single track in the woods commands the thrills and emotions of Icarus soaring, Columbus sailing, Lewis and Clark setting west.
I’m in my sixth decade and have not been far from a bike in 50 years. I ride for exercise, for fun, for mental health and occasionally for challenge. Studies indicate regular riding — or other exercise — will greatly reduce easily distracted children’s dependence on such behavioral control drugs as Ritalin.
I’ve ridden as much as 110 miles in a day, and my most miserable day on a bike established parameters by which to appreciate other days. It happened last summer during RAGBRAI. I knew it was going to rain when we took off from Charles City headed for Manchester, but I — for some reason known only to God — left my rain jacket packed rather than wear it because I thought it would be better to have a dry jacket at the end of the day than to wear the rain jacket in the rain. We froze until our teeth chattered. Riding hard warmed us inside but increased the cold wind across our wet skin.
But rain or less-than-perfect weather no longer threatens me. I took off recently under threat of snow, dressed appropriately; got snowed upon; and had a great adventure. Your body can thrive in conditions much more difficult than your mind often will let you test. Since I endured out of necessity the miserable, cold summer rain in Iowa, I’ve been more likely to ride in conditions I previously avoided.
Where does this put you? You’ve likely “remembered” at some point in your life how to ride a bike, slamming the coaster brake backward and making a long, arching skid in the driveway; flying down hills; dancing on your pedals to push up the next hill. When did you get too old to ride?
Every year, RAGBRAI registers riders in their 70s. I plan to be one of them.
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Riding tips
• As for most activity, if you are going from sedentary to active, then you should get a physical from your doctor.
• Don’t go crazy starting out. One man who weighed 500 pounds (he broke his first bike) could only go around the block on his first ride. Now he weighs under 200 and rides everywhere.
• If you’re just starting, then get regular pedals. You can ride with any shoes. Later you can get pedals into which biking shoes will clip, giving you the ability to pull up the pedal on one side while you push down the pedal on the other, greatly increasing your efficiency as you spin.
• Use the multiple gears of your bike. Shift before you start up a hill. If you wait to downshift until you can’t pull anymore, then there is too much pressure on the chain and cogs to shift smoothly.
• After your helmet, the next important accessory is some bicycle specific shorts. Skip gel pads in favor of dense foam.
• Seat position is important for comfort. Set the height with the ball of your foot on the pedal in the lowest position. Your leg should be slightly bent.
• Know the rules of the road. See the rules for Alabama bikes: http://bicicoop.org/post/455718045/alabama-bike-laws. Generally cyclists have the same rights and responsibilities as automobile drivers. Share the road. (TAB)
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Trivia fact
The heyday of bicycling began in the 1870s with the evolution of the “ordinary.” It was capable of long trips on poor roads, so its use spread fast and far. In a day when a skilled person might earn 25 cents per hour in wages, a good ordinary sold for $75 to $125, making it more expensive than building a house. Nevertheless the ordinary sold at a furious pace. For a short history on the evolution of bicycles, visit www.bikyle.com/history_of_bike.htm.
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