Let's Go Ride a Bike

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."

— Ernest Hemingway

I recently sold my too large guitar amp and got Katie and I a couple of 1970's bikes off craigslist. I had no idea how much I would enjoy riding mine. My bike is a 1979 Raleigh Sprite, which is a road bike for people who are intimidated by road bikes. It's actually comfortable, the handlebars swoop up so you're not hunched over, it has narrow road tires and it's surprisingly fast. When I first started up our big hill, I thought I would never make it to the top. Now two weeks later I am trucking up the hill and loving it. My childhood bike was a single speed, and I remember being "that kid" that always got left behind in races on our street. So for most of my life riding a bike has been associated with pure misery. It's the above Hemingway quote and the now 10 gears to choose from that have liberated me from that old way of thinking about bikes. Turns out there is a whole sub-culture surrounding these "hybrid" retro bikes, the motto being "not sport...transport." Within this culture there is a general disdain for lycra wear, low handlebars, and grim expressions and a love for cargo bags, bullet headlights and taking in the local scenery. I'm loving it!