Life on Two Wheels
Life on Two Wheels
by Jay Kerner
The invention of the wheel is considered a benchmark of human achievement. But if you ask me, the real genius was the guy that added the second. I figured that out from the seat of a tricycle on the sidewalk while older kids were riding bikes in the street. I wanted one of my own for the longest time. Ached for one. Finally, my impoverished parents sprung for my first at the Goodwill Store. I was so excited. My Dad was going to paint it like new and then he was going to teach me to ride it!
He did neither, as was his custom, and got tired of me pestering him. I argued that I could ride it now and paint it later, but no, we couldn’t let the neighbors see me on an old rusty bike! We had to paint it first. I don’t know how long I waited. Seemed like years to me, but it may have just been a few months. Then school was out, and all the other neighborhood kids were riding. Some lots younger than me. That chapped my hide!
So, my young mind rationalized that if paint was all that was stopping me, I’d just do the job myself. I found a partial gallon in the basement and an old brush. Surely, the parental units would appreciate a little ingenuity. The paint was sort of pale baby blue, leftover from the bathroom. I painted the bike. I painted the chain, the seat, and the handlebars. Even the tires. Put ‘er on thick, too!
And I taught myself to ride that butt-ugly bike with no help from anybody. No training wheels. No steadying hand running alongside. Nobody to help me up after any of the hundreds of small crashes that preceded my first successful solo flight. I may have only covered 50 feet or so before taking a header into an evergreen bush. Still, I had really and truly done it for the first time, and by gosh, I knew I could do it again! And I barely stopped for most of the next decade.
I started riding during a major design change in the bicycle industry. For the first half of the 20th century, the big, heavy, art déco style bikes were the style. But in the 60s, the Schwinn Company introduced their “Stingray” model; overnight, everybody wanted one. Oh, baby! You were persona non grata on the playground if you were still riding an old clunker like mine.
The Stingray was so expensive it was just a dream for most kids in our part of town. However, I was an industrious little bastard. I set my eye on the much cheaper but still cool Sears Roebuck version in the catalog. I know how old this makes me sound, but I earned enough money for the bike by returning soda bottles for the deposit. That was a thing then. It took a lot of bottles to buy that bike, but I roamed the alleys and dug in people’s trash, and I damn sure did it! They delivered that bike right to our door. What a day that was!
We were living at Grandma and Grandpa’s house by that time. (Dad was probably off not teaching his new wife’s kids how to ride by then). But Grandpa helped me get it out of the box, and we assembled it. It was so gorgeous! It was ruby red and scratch-free with a banana seat, un-sat by previous butts. We got it set perfect for my height and tipped the butterfly handlebars just so.
I’ve bought several houses and too many cars, trucks, and motorcycles to count. But to this day, I’ve never purchased anything with my own money that I was more proud of than that red bike! I was a king! Three days later, it was stolen right off the front stoop. I was crushed! Beaten right down to nothing. I was inconsolable.
After that, I mostly rode Franken-bikes assembled from various “donor” units. Right up till the style changed again, this time to English racing bikes. Fortunately, this horrible trend coincided with my reaching driving age, and I probably went forty years without riding another bicycle. I did have a sweet, twenty-year window in there with a succession of ever-larger and heavier motorcycles and enjoyed the heck out of it. I gave them up when I no longer trusted my bad knee to hold them up anymore.
But I missed it. So, now I’m riding an E-bike, and we go with the kids and grandkids. It’s awesome! We’re rebels without causes as we burn up the hiking/biking trails. I found that the thrill of riding on two wheels has never gone away. I may not go as fast as I once did, but I’m still moving under my own power (most of the time) with no plans to stop. Anybody that wants me to is going to have to catch me first!
