Bicycle Memories

Biking season is back for fair-weather cyclists in Lancaster County—and I just got a new bicycle last evening. This is the third time I’ve become the owner of a new bike.

My first bikes were the hand-me-downs my brothers and sisters and I used making endless loops on the driveway, before we were allowed to venture to places like the library and Sharp Shopper. My favorite was the pink and white bike with the big banana seat. Someone, maybe me, had made the mistake of putting stickers on the frame, which probably looked very pretty at first, but after a while, just looked grimy and ugly.

When I was 11, my parents gave me my first truly-mine bike, since I would soon acquire the family paper route (besides bikes, we also passed on a newspaper route). That bike was dark purple and had mountain bike tires, useful for bumping over cracked sidewalks and customer’s grassy lawns.

After that first bike wore out, when I was maybe about 18, I got the second new bike. Because I had no longer had the paper route, Bike 2 got used much less.

When I moved to Ireland in 2012 for a two-year volunteer term at a mission, I decided to ship Bike 2 over with a shipping container that the mission organization regularly sent to Ireland. My bike traveled in a sea container mostly filled with lumber for the mission‘s furniture business.

In Ireland, biking was called cycling. I cycled up and down super narrow country roads lined with shaggy hedgerows and stone fences. If I wanted to go to a bigger town, like Dungarvan or Waterford, I had to brave the “motorway” named the Ring Road.

I left Ireland after two years, but my bicycle stayed behind. It was an old bicycle by then and not worth the money to ship it home. Is it still in use or rusting in a rubbish heap? I don’t know.

For the past several years, since I returned from Ireland, Mom let me ride her bike. Her biking days are mostly behind her. But it wasn’t truly mine, and I kept thinking of getting a new bike, especially since Mom’s bike was clearly wearing out. On Sunday, I biked ten miles with my friend, Veronica, and by the end the trail, we had decided on a couple of things: we want to go biking more, and it’s time for new bikes!

So last evening, Veronica and I went to Shirk’s bike shop to pick out new bicycles. Shirk’s bike shop is way out in the country next to small, steep hill, a great place for testing the bikes.

Since it’s springtime, the bike shop was crowded, but the teenage Mennonite girl salesclerk was really helpful. She helped my friend pick out a new bike. I looked at the new ones ones too, but wound up buying a used bicycle— a higher-end model road bike with purple accents, fancy brakes, and what we used to call billy-goat handlebars.

Veronica and I left the shop, both very pleased with our new bikes and making promises to go biking together some more. We’re planning another cycling adventure in two weeks, if the weather’s nice.

This evening, I got to test out my new bike. I needed to return something at CVS, about 3 miles away. It was cool and the sun was still out, so the conditions were just right.

As I pedaled to CVS, I thought about how when I’m biking, I actually notice what’s happening around me, since I’m going slower and there’s definitely more danger— potholes, oversized load trucks, wait, are those two German shepherds looking at me? (They weren’t.)

Happily, no close calls this evening. I just biked to CVS, returned my stuff, and biked home again. It started to rain just a bit on the way home. (Biking forces me to actually pay attention to the weather.)

Now I’m home again, in front of my computer, the new-for-me-bike safely in the barn. I’m hoping to bike to work tomorrow— it’s 12-mile round trip—but it’s makes the usual route to work a little adventure.