Charlie, a biking legend

The first bike that I remember belonged to my brother, Charlie.  I don’t remember a lot about the details other than it was a red boy’s bike.  It also had a fender over the rear tire which became my mode of transportation.

Charlie’s bicycle skills were legend in the family.  When he first began riding alone (There was no such thing as training wheels), he circled the block 23 times.   Twenty-three times he circled, past our house, a left by the Halls house, down the street to a left by the Hodel house and then the final left and back to our house.  His proud parents counted as he went around and around the block until he finally fell.  As they helped him up his only comment was “How do you stop?”  His teachers had neglected to share that important information. One wonders why he didn’t shout out “HELP!” on one of those 23 laps.  When Debbie started to ride, everyone made sure that she knew how to stop.

As Charlie grew, he and his friends met up each day on their bicycles to play.   I’m not sure how they knew where to meet (no one had watches or phone) but nevertheless each day they would appear on their bicycles to ride through the town and do stuff.  (I am going to call it stuff because they wouldn’t tell me what they were doing).

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Occasionally, Charlie was told to watch his little sister. I was probably 5 or 6 and Charlie in his early teens. There was no getting out of it the little sister duty.  So, Charlie adjusted and improvised.   He taught me to ride on the back fender of his bike.  The first ride must have been harrowing to watch.  I climbed on the back fender with assistance probably from the higher porch, held on to both sides of Charlie’s shirt, stuck my feet out away from the back wheels and off we wobbled.  Charlie somehow scared the devil out of me because I was convinced my feet would be cut off if they touched the wheels (I still believe this).  I was also never to drag my feet on the ground or we would crash (this might have been proven to be true). 

Once we arrived at the meet up destination, the bikes were often left while the crew went off to play.  Sometimes, I was assigned the duty of guarding the bikes from Judy, a girl 4 or 5 years older than me.  Judy did not have a bike but knew how to ride.  She would sneak up and grab a bike and take off riding.  My job was to jump up and start yelling if I saw her.  I can remember running behind her yelling “Get off the bike”.

Another family legend was Charlie’s bike accident.  He and a friend were riding in the country.  I am not sure what happened, but it involved a bridge, a hill and gravel.  He fell off the bike onto a gravel road.  My parents and I were out and when we came home, Charlie and his friend were waiting.  The car pulled into the driveway, Charlie limped out into the headlights and lifted this shirt to show his stomach as one giant road rash.  I have never seen my parents jump out of the car so fast in my life.  It was spectacular.

To Bike or Not

Bike Series Post 1 (Like I have another one written)

I visited Lindsey in Oregon in October.  I used to walk 4 or 5 miles a day but have had to cut back.  On the visit, we discovered that I could ride a bike without my leg hurting.  I also realized that we might have a generational misunderstanding when I kept asking didn’t she have a girl’s bike?  Lindsey told me there was no such thing anymore. I was pretty shocked as thought that I had been trotting along the side of Mia’s bike trying to unsuccessfully hold it up a few months ago. Maybe she meant real bikers use the unisex bikes.

 I think that her bike was too tall for me, plus I had to stop a little differently than I normally did on a girl’s bike.  The new way involves braking, tilting the bike and then at a run put my foot down.  Lindsey wouldn’t let me ride in the gravel (probably a good move on her part) so walked me to the paved trail and we agreed she would come back for me.

I have to admit that I was thinking once she leaves I am going to ride anywhere that I want maybe I’ll just ride triumphantly back home uphill on the gravel!  Then I thought “Are you crazy?  Uphill?  No, if it was flat but uphill might be a tad ambitious for the initial ride.   What if you fall and get road rash?  How will you explain that to her?  What if you break something? You don’t want to lose bike privileges do you?”  I have vision….I can play out scenarios in my head (a talent not everyone has).

So, I rode up and down the bike trail practicing.   I practiced braking and slowwwwly putting my foot down on the bike trail. I thought that my stopping skills had improved and was truly impressive.  The other bikers thought I was crazy but they didn’t ring their bells properly so too bad your opinion doesn’t matter.

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Anyway, at the allotted time Lindsey showed up and I rode toward her intent on showing my new stopping skills. (as noted, I had practiced).  The plan was to glide up next to the trash dumpster and stop – TA-DA!

Well, I didn’t exactly glide up it was more a stumble up and there was a 50/50 chance for a while that I was going into the dumpster headfirst . I had a helmet on which came within inches of hitting that dumpster.   I heard Lindsey gasp or maybe it was me.   I did, however, successfully stop next to the dumpster and not in it.  I tried to pretend it was all planned that way but did not insist on riding up the gravel hill and took the car since she had driven it down and everything.

I did want to mention later that we saw a girl’s bike.  I think it was called vintage.

This got me thinking about bikes and my history of bikes so will continue on with a bike series……since we don’t have a travel series yet and am sure everyone has been missing the blog. Some of you will be featured in the series – Lindsey, Charlie, Mia just to name a few.

We Survived the freeze

I realized that many of you (this implies that I have a lot of readers – ha!) may wonder how we fared in the freeze.

Spring has sprung and is now in the 80’s. The freeze memory moves further away each day. We did not lose any weight. We were extremely lucky to only have some issues with our pool and one faucet that had the graciousness to only leak on the top of the sink.

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It did convince Debbie that she doesn’t need to go on a snow vacation.

This week we start our new series “Bikes” (Again – sounds like I have an audience) Start thinking of your bike stories.