Apologies, apologies, apologies!
I said I would post something every Friday before we departed for the second ride. It didn't happen the last two or three weeks but I'll try to do better. I'm not sure about this retirement thing. Nobody told me it would be so busy. I'm thinking I may have to get a full-time job to get some rest! Oh well . . . sure beats dying on the couch with the remote in my hand.
So I'm back and I'm thinking about bikes I had as a kid. All of my bikes were used and probably abused but they were bikes. I don't remember when, where, or how I got any of them but they were important in my growing years. I know dad bought them somewhere, brought them home, and from there they went everywhere.
I don't remember training wheels and wouldn't have used them anyway. Training wheels in my town would have been the focus of much ridicule from the other kids so I just toughed it out, pushed off, and have been doing so ever since. I'm still getting road rash from time to time too. I have a t-shirt in my closet with these words of wisdom, "You don't stop riding because you get old. You get old because you stop riding." That sums it all up for me.
As a kid my bike was my key to freedom. On my bike I was on my own, the captain of any ship, the pilot of any aircraft, or the explorer standing on the edge of any adventure I desired. From my hometown of Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania I could venture out to far away places like Railroad, Glen Rock, Hametown, New Freedom, Stewartstown, Loganville, Jacobus, York, Hanover, and even Maryland Line, Maryland. As a kid I never thought about riding across America; I did it all the time!
My first real bike was a Raleigh three-speed and I thought I was the coolest kid in my hometown. I had gears! Not many kids in Shrewsbury had gears on their bikes. I did! I could challenge the greatest and steepest of hills on southern York County. King of the Mountains: that was me! I kind of wish I still had that bike just as a reminder of those wonder years of cycling. Sad to say, that was also my last bike before my driver's license when I began a temporary retirement from cycling. After all, bikes were for kids.
I didn't really get back to pedaling until I moved to Fairfield, Ohio. I was an architecture student at the University of Cincinnati, lived in Fairfield, worked for Steed, Hammond, & Paul Architects in Hamilton and decided I could ride to work everyday, get a little exercise and save a little money. I went to Petricoff's Bicycle Shop in downtown Hamilton and purchased a Nishiki International ten or twelve speed bike and was back on the saddle again. Since then I've ridden in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, and Alabama. Freedom!
I'm thankful for the bikes and the adventures I've had on them. Adventure Cycling, a great and helpful biking organization out of Missoula, Montana, has a bike sticker, I Dream on Two Wheels. Well, I do. When I was young and foolish, I did a lot of dreaming on two wheels. Now that I'm just foolish, the dreams never die. Out there in my United States of America are people I want to meet and see again, places I want to go, and adventures I want to discover. As long as God gives me strength to turn the crank on a bicycle, I'll pedal and dream and love every minute of it!
Bikes have been around for a long time. A sketch of a bicycle, or something similar, drawn by a Mr. Caprotti, a student of Leonardo da Vinci was supposedly drawn in 1493. From there the bicycle has evolved through thousands of designs and changes including velocipedes, 3 and 4-wheelers, Boneshakers, high-wheel bicycles, safety bicycles, recumbent bicycles, BMX bikes, mountain bikes, hybrids, commuter bikes, comfort bikes, and road bikes of steel, aluminum or carbon. Some day when you have nothing else to do just Google "History of Bicycles" and look at what you find. Even men like Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers had their hands in the bicycle industry. Like anything else, bikes have come a long, long way.
And once again I am excited about pedaling a long, long way. I can't wait to put that back wheel in the Atlantic Ocean and finish the first block in Ocean Park, Maine. I'm excited about searching for license plates, eating great food at hole-in-the-wall restaurants, discovering miscellaneous items along the roadways, taking thousands of photos, singing to myself, spotting wildlife, seeing the northwest mountains from a distance, riding The Upper Peninsula of Michigan, hanging out in Duluth, and eating a breakfast sub at the Sub Shop/Chevron Station at the foot of Washington Pass in Twisp. I'm looking forward to Eugene's Pizza in Glasgow, Montana, where "The recipe is top secret. The taste isn't." It will be fun surprising some of the friends we made on the last crossing. I wonder if they'll remember us. I'm looking forward to praying with Margaret each morning as I stand at the driver's window and I'm ready to see that brown hail-damaged Ford Explorer waiting up the road at the each of each day. I'm ready to hang out with the Creator as I pedal through His Creation with Psalm 19:1-4 on my mind. Yep, I am ready to pedal! Whether it's mountains, valleys, rain, snow, sunshine, flat tires, wind, wildlife, and even dogs, I am ready! Of course, I'll have to count the number of times I hear, "Are you crazy?"
"The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or a word; their voice is silent in the skies; yet their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to all the world" (Psalm 19:1-4).
Ready or not America, here I come!
