Lion and Magic Boy

WARNING: If you’re bored by talk of cycling, skip on ahead. But these random thoughts keep regaling me with their uproarious tales every time I ride, so unless I download them somewhere they will continue to haunt me.

1. I have a new enemy: The Wind. Either Evil or Blessed depending on what direction I am going, The Wind has caused me some agony and joy. Mostly the former it seems, so it must be changing direction. Hate. Wind.

2. Indecisive cat at the bottom of what should be the Flying Hill of Joy That Comes before The Painful Uphill That’s Almost At The End Of My Ride When My Legs Are Shot. Causes much sudden braking and tooth-gnashing.

3. Geese are smarter than cats, either that or the Lead Goose in charge of the entire village’s brood (much grown, now) and responsible for Safe Crossing of Roads must know a thing or two about bicycles, and wisely avoided much featherous tragedy by keeping everyone to the side until the Great Wheeled God had passed.

4. Weird tan: arms (but only down to the wrist, from gloves); shoulders but only in back; and the tops of thighs only. Attractive!

5. If a fattish kid also on a bike does the head-nod thing to you and you nod back, being the polite cyclist that you are, it may cause you to notice that you’ve forgotten to don your helmet, noticing as you now do the feel of the wind in your hair. Nervousness about cars and really really hard asphalt and what happened to this guy (clearly there are genetic connections, although you don’t pretend to be able to do much of anything he does—100 miles? At one time? HA!—despite having worshipped him for years in a younger-sisterly sort of way) causes you to turn back although you’ve only been out ten minutes.

END OF BIKESTUFF

1. Eric looks remarkably grown up now in a polo short and khakis, especially when he is emptying the pantry in search of something to eat.

2. It’s interesting how fast a cat will run and for how long when it’s gotten its back legs entangled in a plastic grocery bag. (WHY IS THAT DAMN THING FOLLOWING ME???) I estimate a good 40 mph, which went on for a good ten minutes before I could catch up with him and remove the bag. No lasting damage to the cat, but the bag, sadly, was beyond repair. This may curb his penchant for crawling into bags.
[tags]cycling, biking, stupid wind, funny cat stories[/tags]

You know how I know this? Because I am now coughing out gazillions of tiny bits of grass after having breathed them in for the past hour. Yay!

Yes indeed, it was time for another bike ride.

Actually, there have been several since the last one, but none were all that noteworthy. Not that today’s was either, except that I am pretty sure I will require oxygen because of it.

So seriously, why must everyone have their grass cut on Tuesdays around here? (And why does everyone here seem to hire people for this? No one can wield a mower themselves anymore?) I awoke this morning being thankful that the grass people here where I live didn’t start at 7 am like they usually do.

But on the bike out in the country, and by “country” I mean a quick and painful 5-minute ride from my door, where suddenly there are horses and geese and silos and hay and grass. Lots of grass. All being mowed. Today.

Cough.

So my ride today turned out much longer than I intended. I turned around looking at an enormous hill stretching up into the clouds in front of me, turned around because I was already tired and I was afraid of that hill, the hill that was there stretching up into infinity and laughing at me, laughing at my paltry winter legs on my frail tiny bike, a hill miles long and miles high.

So I turned around and got to go down the foothill of that enormous hill, which felt very very good until I remembered the hills I had previously been enjoying going down, which apparently I was now going to have to go up.

Ding ding ding ding! Smart, I am.

Hate. Hills.

It dawned on me that I could turn around again, but then I would want to turn around yet again the next time there was a hill and eventually I would end up stuck forever at the bottom right in between two enormous hills, too tired to go up any longer but instead doomed to keep riding back and forth, back and forth, at the bottom.

So I slogged through the hills and hoped to meet the hopelessly slow Bike Riding Couple that I had passed earlier while riding down the hill they were riding up, fantasizing that if I turned around just then I’d be riding slightly faster and slightly less awkwardly than they were.

Instead, I found myself flying, first soaring with the beautiful guitars in this song, and then doubly energized by the empowerment of the lyrics which I seemed to be really hearing for the first time and are quite appropos to certain elements of my life just now.

So things end, and so they begin.

Flush with the heady success of yesterday’s 1.25 hour walk amid the geese of the Great White North, this morning I decided it was well past time to get back on my bicycle again. After all, it finally feels like spring and I can no longer use the excuse that worked all winter about it being “too cold” to ride.

After topping off the air in my tires, it felt good to get on the bike again, especially tricked out as I was, resplendant in an outfit that marks me immediately as a poseur. At least people know what they’re dealing with that way. Cars don’t get too close. Which is good.

Yay! I’m riding again! This feels good (hey, don’t you like how I changed tenses?)! Yep, that first 100 feet felt really good. Now my legs hurt. How long am I going to ride, an hour like I used to? Okay! Let’s go!

Hey, my legs still hurt. Ow.

Well, I’d better get some speed up to impress these construction guys in case they look at me. Because I’m going so slowly I might appear to be moving backward, and that might confuse them.

Okay! Now we’re rolling! This feels great! Bye, construction guys! Oh, they’re not looking, I can stop sucking in my stomach.

Geez, is the air getting thicker or something? Because it’s getting hard to breathe. Am I that out of shape? pant pant

Oh well, maybe it’ll be better away from these cars! That’s it, it must be the exhaust!

Oh, look at how the grass is all green now, how pretty!

Hey, wait a second — pant pant — I remember this feeling! Throat closing, hard to breathe, what is this?? I know, it’s that spring breathing thing, the pollen thing, the reason I got a treadmill to run indoors. Oh shit, it’s spring! And I’m breathing…..AIR!! [shudder]

HEY! LAWNMOWING GUY! STOP THAT! pant pant Can’t — breathe– the grass–

pedalpedalpedal

pant pant

Okay, past the lawn mowing guy, but what’s all that pink over there? Ohh, pretty trees, all blooming….NO!! Those are DEATH TREES, COVERED IN POLLEN!!

pedalpedal pant pant

Good. I’m past the trees. pantpant

On to the horses. No, not the bony, spavined, walking-distance horses, today I’ll ride past the Standardbred breeding farm. Yep, there they are, some of them, four yearlings still covered with their winter fuzziness. Aren’t they pretty? And, what’s that on that one horse? Hanging below it?

Oh. It’s a…

right.

pedalpedalpedalpastthehorsepenis

Yay, almost to the hill, the DOWN hill. Speed! Wind rushing past my ears, look, I’ve almost hit 20 mph (which sadly used to be about my average speed)!!

And here’s the UP hill again. Fuck the hill. I hate the hill.

pedal. pedal. pedal. pantpantpantpant

An hour? Are you crazy? No way. Time to turn around. NOW.

UP the hill. HATE the hill. DEATH to all hills.

pedal.

pedal.

pedal.

horsepenisdon’tlook

Death trees. Don’t breathe.

Oh, what’s that smell? Smells kind of good? Oh no, it’s someone’s dryer sheet, DON’T YOU KNOW THOSE ARE MADE OF POISONOUS PETROLEUM AND PREVENT ASTHMATIC BICYCLISTS FROM BREATHING??! Fine, but if I keel over now from your sheet of Bounce, my death is on YOUR HEAD!

Construction guys. Sit up a little straighter, suck it in, and pedal really fast so it looks like you’re moving faster!

Almost home. pantpantpant

Lie down and gasp futilely for seven minutes. I’ll breathe tomorrow, maybe.

Now — time to take a photo, obviously!

(Would it have hurt to have cracked a smile?)
[tags] cycling, gasping, breathing, pollen, lame, horse penis[/tags]

Today I splurged (what, again? wanton woman!) and visited a bike shop. It was great to smell the new-rubber smell of the tires and look at the shiny bikes and colorful jerseys and things so cool I don’t even know what they are but I want them.

I “only” spent some $200-odd. But I feel much better now. It is getting cold and the last thing I’ve been wanting to do is jump on my bike in shorts and a thin jersey and go feel the wind chill. Now I have no excuse, as I am tricked out unless it gets REALLY cold, in which case everything I bought can actually double as running gear, which causes, especially in my case, much less wind (this is of course due to the abysmally slow speed at which I run). In theory.

I liked the bike guy. He was built like my brother, who’s a real cyclist, and even has the same name. Maybe all bike-guys are named Eric? But this guy looked like an Erik. I didn’t ask.

Anyway, here’s my question: Why did I feel compelled to act as if I’ve been riding a semi-long time and know all about bike stuff, appropriately causing my eyes to light up for instance when he mentioned “carbon” as a component of some of the better bikes (I do know that Carbon = Good = Expensive, but duh) and nodding knowingly when he reminded me of the importance of wool socks this time of year? Why? I’m sure he could see right through me, easily reading the word “poseur” stamped on my forehead. Gah.

So I went for that ride this afternoon in all my new gear, and those 8.5 miles, being hillywindycold, were very slow and extra long. But this is what I looked like when I came back:

By the way? The wool socks? Now I know what he meant. Can you say Frostbite? (photo courtesy of Michael, thank you Michael!)

I went for a bike ride today, exactly my third ride since moving to Pennsylvania over a month ago. Yep, I’ve been slacking.

It was nice to get out there though. The sun was actually shining for once, and it was once of those crisp autumn days that the northeast is famous for: golden leaves in a canopy overhead, grass still emerald-green below making a shocking contrast to the reds and golds of the trees. Sunday drivers were out in force, though, and most of them apparently do not own maps and so were wandering aimlessly through the countryside of my ride.

I was worried about the hills. Previously I even had to turn back and seek another route because of the enormous daunting hills that caused me to turn to the granny gears, where I’d never have been caught dead in on any of my rides in Colorado, hills or not, but I suppose the move has taken the wind out of my sails a bit and I’m not in the shape I was in the summertime. Not a bit, in fact.

But I did fine, sailing down one hill, across a one-lane bridge (LOOK OUT CARS!!) and then up the hill on the other side. 10 miles, 40 minutes.

I saw only one other cyclist, though. A woman grinning uncomfortably at me from her perch on a “comfort” bike, about to embark on her ride through the countryside. I did the up-nod acknowledgement that I learned watching my older brother navigate junior high school: too cool to actually use words, this gesture was a brief head move that could be missed if you weren’t looking for it. Using it meant you were One Of Them, and only the incredibly wimpy, geeky, and clueless weren’t allowed to employ it. Or Girls. Never Girls.
But I saw this in Colorado. Packs of sleek cyclists out for their daily 2 hours in lycra would cooly acknowledge each other when passing on opposite sides of the road. You’re one of us, it whispered. We’re alike. Even me. So naturally when faced with lesser cyclists I could employ the same technique. I’M FASTER THAN YOU AHAHAHAHA! I HAVE A COOL BIKE! LOOK! IT SAYS CANNONDALE! IT’S BLUE! AND I’M SO COOL, LOOK LOOK LOOK! I EVEN HAVE GLOVES!

Who knew? Geek on bike.

I’m so pathetic.

P.S. My legs hurt. Ow. Damn hills.

We are lucky enough to see some things in life come full circle. The end is the beginning.

About two years ago, a bicycle inexplicably turned up at our curb, near the mailbox. It was a garish yellow, clearly meant for a medium-sized child, and was left carelessly on its side despite the kickstand. We were sure someone would come to claim it soon.

I put a “found” ad in the paper and posted signs on nearby telephone poles, hoping to attract the attention of parents driving their precious kiddoes home from the elementary school next door.

No response.

We inquired at the school, and the janitor there said, “Oh the yellow one? It’s been here for months.”

So it seems we were the new owners of an orphan bicycle.

Problem was, Nathaniel didn’t want it. He didn’t have a bike, had never yet ridden one, but this one seemed to still belong to someone else.

The bike spent the winter out in the elements, rain, wind, and snow.

Last summer when we planned the move to Colorado we all somehow knew that bikes are practically issued at the borders of the state, everyone rides, and Nathaniel had better get with the program and fast before we moved, or he’d be the only nine-year old in the entire state who didn’t ride a bike.

He looked at the yellow bike. Yellow Bike looked back at him.

Soon Nathaniel was astride Yellow Bike, tiptoeing around on the grass, making circuits around the house. It wasn’t long before he tried it out on the asphalt of the schoolyard next door. Soon he was flying over speed bumps, and coming home with enormous scrapes of knees and elbows. Didn’t matter. He was riding Yellow Bike. Yellow Bike was his.

Yellow Bike made the move to Colorado, and took many trips with Nathaniel to Bike Camp (the bike path that connects our subdivision with the next one, carved out of the prairie in between) and around the new neighborhood. Yellow Bike survived two new tire tubes, and several crashes.

This spring, Yellow Bike developed more difficulties than we knew how to repair. Plus he somehow had become too short for the Tall Boy. It was time to move on, and Black Giant joined us.

So Nathaniel put a sign on Yellow Bike (FREE! TAKE ME HOME!), and left him at the park across the street.

Soon, we hope, Yellow Bike will belong to someone else who needs him.

The circle is complete.

bicycles

Okay, so I finally got Michael on a bike (not his own yet, but he can ride mine (Cannondale Silk Path 700, in blue) for awhile until he decides he really wants one of his own, at least as long as he puts the seat back up). After one ride he agrees for the need for those funky bike-specific shorts. You know, the ones with a, uh, “diaper” sewn inside? But no Lycra. No, no, no.

Mine are Lycra of course, and black, which is de rigeur around here as far as I can tell, but Michael wants to remain casual about this, which means no cycling gear. Not even a helmet, but that’s a different story.

So today I dragged the three children to the local REI to investigate the world of men’s cycling shorts. Who knew there were so many kinds? And so expensive? Can you see why I got my own cycling gear from eBay and Sierra Trading Post?

Eric immediately went down on the (not so clean) floor to practice his pouncing crawling technique, while Nathaniel jonesed for a pair of cycling gloves (oh, the blisters that boy endures! Did I have cycling gloves at age 10? Did I buy him some anyway?).

After choosing an acceptably baggy pair of gray shorts for the paltry sum of $55, I asked the bearded and sandaled clerk what the differences really are in men’s cycling shorts. Apparently, gel ($80) is the watchword here, but he first asked whether Michael had been riding with no padding at all. When I answered in the affirmative, the clerk basically let me know that he’d whine and moan about how it feels like he’s got on a diaper, but after one ride he’d be incredibly grateful, so the $55 shorts would do fine.

Incredibly grateful. I like the sound of that.

Last fall, full of eagerness about joining the ranks of the faux-fit one sees cycling around Boulder and its environs, I invested in a Burley trailer for my littlest. I did all manner of research, finding this trailer to be the ultimate in baby comfort so Eric could follow me on my cycling jaunts that somehow I envisioned as being multi-hour rides through semi-rural farmland.

The first problem was the helmet. I could not find one small enough. Eric, even though he was two years old, is quite small for his age and apparently has an unusually small head. Helmets made for infants did not fit him. All the information I could amass said “if your baby’s head is too small for a helmet, don’t take him on a ride”.

So I waited. How long does it take for a head to grow, anyway?

Not being able to stand it any longer, I figured 8 months was long enough and I’ve had all I can stand of carrying about this extra 10 pounds that have somehow attached themselves to me while at the same time seeing cyclists everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

Today was the day to test the Burley.

Nathaniel and I finished putting it together, we got it hitched up, put air in everyone’s tires, and I strapped on my cycling gloves and helmet, not to mention Eric’s helmet. When I asked him if he wanted to go for a ride, he said, “Ga”. He sort of looked like he was strapped into a racing car cockpit, but he looked ready.

Off we went.

After approximately two minutes, I heard a “thunk” coming from behind me. Cleverly turning my head while not hitting any parked cars, I glimpsed Eric’s bare head inside the trailer. He had removed his helmet.

We stopped, I unstrapped the combination window/sunscreen cover (window rolled up to catch any sort of breeze, as it was already past 11 am and was at least 85 degrees), reattached Eric’s helmet, and we were off.

Thunk.

New record, maybe 30 seconds.

This time Eric got a lecture (we’re not going to be able to ride if you take your helmet off; the helmet stays on) and strapped it extra tight.

Waah, sounds of a struggle. I look back, and Eric is choking himself with the helmet strap, but can’t remove it because it’s so tight. We repeat the last two steps (reattachment, lecture).

Waaah again.

I give up, remove the helmet, and tell Eric we’re going home. He sings all the way home, feeling the cool breeze in his hair.