Bicycles – Thursday Thirteen V3

I have good strong memories when it comes to bikes in my life. They’re easy to remember and they put a smile on my face.

1) The first time I ever had to get stitches was because of my first bike. My strawberry shortcake tricycle. I was sitting on it and apparently (as so told by my mom and grandma) the wind knocked me off my bike and my head hit the edge of the brick steps and cracked my head open. They tell me that they could see my skull. I’ve got a scar now still because of it. I was 2 years old.

2) Between the ages of 4-6, I was upgraded from my strawberry shortcake tricycle to a big wheel (pound puppies big wheel). All 4 of us kids had them. At that time we lived in a mobile home and so we had stairs going up to the front door. And so we’d run up one side of the stairs with our big wheels, sit down, and ride down the other side (they were A frame-ish stairs). One after the other, those were good times. And we’d walk our bikes up the big hill all the way to the top and fly down it.

3) I got my first 2 wheeler when I was 6. I was in South Carolina for the summer visiting my father and my grandparents and my father bought my sister and I these purple-ish 2 wheelers with training wheels. The training wheels didn’t last long. I learned to ride it without the training wheels in the big back yard which was more like an open field with some trees. Guess it wasn’t quite an open field. But I do remember it didn’t take long for me to learn to ride without the training wheels.

4) I got my first bike with hand brakes when I was about 9. I remember that one night my cousins came over and one of them crashed my bike and scratched the handlebars. I was so pissed off because the bike was practically still brand new at that point.

5) In the third grade, I decided that I was going to ride my bike to school even though it was strictly forbidden. But I figured that since dad had to ride his bike to work he wouldn’t be home for lunch and since mom worked downtown, she wouldn’t be home for lunch either and so they’d never find out. They found out and I got into some serious trouble. I was grounded for like a week. I never did find out how they found out, but I suspect that my friend’s dad contacted my parents and asked why I was riding my bike to school if I didn’t have my own bike lock.

6) My papa, he taught me how to ride my bike without using my hands. I used to even be able to turn corners without my hands on my handlebars. It was all about leaning into the turns. It’s been a while since I’ve done that…I should attempt it again.

7) Back when I got my first bike with gears, all 15 of them, it was just that, a bike with gears, I had no concept of mountain bike vs road bike at that time in my life. What’s funny about that is that dad had a road bike, but it never clicked with me that there was another kind of bike with gears.

8 ) Papa used to take us out to the mesa, and one time, we took our bikes with us, and he drove us to the top of a big big big hill out there in the mesa and we got out and rode down the hill until the sand got too deep and then the front wheels got stuck and we went flying feet over head.

9) My friend got a mountain bike one christmas and only rode it once. I used to ride it from her house to work. Then when she moved, she gave the bike to me. That was back in 2001. Back then, and for several years afterwards (like until last year when I bought a new mtn bike) that bike was the coolest bike ever.

10) The first time I ever rode a road bike, I didn’t get very far. I crashed and the tire exploded and I flew over the handle bars. It was at that point that I decided road bikes were far to fragile and that I needed to stick to mountain bikes. (that thought barely made it a year)

11) Last year I bought a new mountain bike. It was ok. I was content with it until I went to CO to ride in the Tour de Cure and heard the whizz of road bikes flying past me on a horrible hill. That was the last time I rode that bike, it got sold it this past May.

12) 2 days after the CO Tour de Cure last year, I bought a road bike, 2 days after that I spent a week in ICU. I didn’t touch that road bike until October last year when I rode in the Fort Worth Tour de Cure, then it was winter, and then I had to have a surgery, and so my bike didn’t see pavement again till the Orlando Tour de Cure in February. Since then, that bike has seen over 1000 miles and only 1 crash. I love that bike.

13) I have two bikes in view for my next bike purchases. Both of them are very yum yum bikes. One will be for training and one will be for racing. The one for training will be the Quintana Roo Dulce (it’s probably the one I get first, it’s the cheaper of the two) and then my racing bike, mmmmmm, the Scott Plasma LTD (that will take me a year to save for).

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