…from a bike around town.
A few years ago while I was still in Guntersville, my home town, I would wear out the roads on my bike. The same bike I ride today.
I don’t know how many thousands of miles it might take, but I have worn sets of tires and brakes out on that bike. Not going flat, necessarily. Though, I have had to replace many a tube. Really, wearing them down bald.
A typical day was between 30-50 miles and I did it a few times a week. I had a digital odometer on the handlebars for years – it died a long time ago from rain exposure – that would clock up a few weeks worth of miles before it rolled back over to zero at 999.
The bike is just a Giant Sedona. Simple. Nothing fancy or anything. It has a solid build and great frame. The tires are fat road tires – not studded mountain bike tires – and can handle jumping curbs and running through thick gravel and down grassy hills.
Its amazing what you’ll experience from a bike you otherwise would miss. Start to realize ever passing car has a different smell – as gross as that might seem – and being closer to the action keeps you in contact with the world, the people of the world.
In the glass box of your car, you are just a part of the machine blowing by.
Now, the handle bars are rusting, the grips are coming apart, only the front brake will actually stop the bike (who knows how many sets of brakes I’ve had), the chain is gummy, I’m on the third or fourth seat (the others all wore threadbare and the padding falls out), the tires are stained with grimy mud, oh, and the shock absorbers don’t really absorb the shocks all that well anymore… but I keep riding.
Two miles to the bottom of the mountain, I can hit 40mph if I really tuck in tight, I can make it a quarter mile without pedaling or another half at gear 3 and 7 without shifting down if I pedal. Then its another two miles from light to light across the water to the island. If I turn right on the trail, I go 1.5 miles before I have to get on the road, or I can go straight through the pass where there is just a slight incline and sidewalk.
I know all the little places, all the little neat secrets.
What’s over there? You can’t go in a car. You’d have to find somewhere to park and explore it on foot. But on the bike, you can get in and escape if someone sees you where you’re not supposed to be… like over behind the feed mills or the back yard of the creepy old house on top of the hill.
Oh the places you’ll find when you take the time…
Stay tuned…
-Noah D.
