The Impermanence of Bicycle Riding

I just sold my bicycle. My last bicycle. What, you only have one bicycle? Just like guitars, I’ve had three of more in the home at any given moment. My final bicycle was a real hum dinger. Close to the top-of-the-line, straight-bar, electric-assist, built in lights and very expensive. It gave me a few years of pleasure. But, this disease has brought me to the point where falling off a bicycle, crashing or any jarring movements could be really bad for a body whose skeleton is riddled with cancer. So today I say goodbye to the last bike in the basement and sixty years of bicycle riding. And what a wondrous ride it has been.

I started a love affair with bicycles when I was very young. At least that’s what photographs show. Three years old on a tricycle with a big smile. Next came a two wheeler with training wheels, something I held onto for way too long. I remember being invited to a friend’s house in first grade. He had already mastered the balance and confidence riding without the training wheels. I had not. I practiced for a few days but to no avail. I shyly walked over the friend’s house. No bicycle riding for the time being.

Two houses away from us in rural Methuen, MA., there was a really old man who rode a bicycle daily. He was older than anyone in the neighborhood. He lived with his son, daughter-in-law, and their children. And every day, weather permitting, he would walk the bike out onto the street, put his left foot on the left pedal, push along with his right leg until the bike got going a bit, and then with some momentum, swing his right leg and hip over the moving bike and land right in the saddle. It was elegant. It was cool. Plus he was an old dude. Pretty impressive. I finally learned to ride my bike around this quiet area, eventually without the training wheels. We moved to Lawrence, MA., when I was about nine.

Lawrence was a different scene. During school we would dream of choppers (cool motorcycles with extended forks). After school we would gather junk and abandoned bikes. Eventually we would hacksaw the forks off all the extra bikes and then gently hammer them on the existing forks of our bikes. Now we had choppers. Not very safe choppers, but choppers nonetheless.

At eleven years old, somehow before I was old enough, my father got me a job as a paperboy. I remember my grandfather helping out with my birthday present for a new Schwinn bicycle with twenty four inch wheels adding large steel saddle baskets on the back for the newspapers I’d be delivering. The bike was a single speed.

Around twelve or thirteen years old I made a bunch of money with the paper route and was able to buy the latest and greatest in bicycles – the drop bar ten speed. These bikes were brand new to the bicycle world. Mine was a Crystal brand from Japan. It was green with skinny tires. It had the drop bars, which were for racing. I had the double brake levers installed for riding in the upright position. I had a rack put on the back. I had lights installed and an air pump to change flats. Water bottles and cages were installed. I was going places. I rode that bike all over the place having the time of my life. My father pointed out one bad habit that I had with the new bike. I would pull the brake lever hard as I approached the bottom of our hill every day, skidding briefly. The back tire had already developed a bald spot.

On one occasion around mid-day I was downtown on Essex street. We were on our bikes and stopped by Ziggy’s, a hippy shop. They had incense and posters and army-navy clothing. We leaned our bikes against the front of the store, in broad daylight as they say, and when we exited just a few minutes later my bike was gone. Wow.

A few months went by and my father was visiting a friend in the next town over. As he drove slowly down a dead end road he noticed a small young boy struggling to riding a green Crystal bicycle that was way too big for him. As my father approached the boy on the bike he came to a stop and struck up a conversation with the boy. The boy said his father, who worked downtown, brought it home from work one day. My dad asked the boy to roll the bike a little and there it was – a bald spot on the back tire. After getting the boy’s address my father returned home, grabbed me and my paperwork for the bike which included the serial number, and we went to the police station. The police had my bike back pretty quickly. Lock your bike!

Living in New Hampshire in the early nineties I bought the latest and greatest, my first mountain bike. The bike industry always has a latest and greatest every decade or so to keep the industry “fresh”. With a mountain bike I was riding through the woods, up and down hills, exploring everywhere. After just a few months I traded up for a better model. A few months later I was working at the bike shop assembling bikes, repairing bikes and finally selling bikes. I worked on and off for fifteen years in the bike shop and accumulated a bunch of latest and greatest bikes and have so many great memories. Camping on the Kancamagus one summer we rode the mountain bikes up to the pass. I loved mountain biking so much I entered a few races. Another summer we hitched a ride up to Gorham, NH., and took a few days to ride back to Concord, NH., camping in the White Mountains one night and at Lake Winnipesaukee the other.

In addition to riding bikes I took up running about ten years ago. After running a bunch of races I discovered duathlons, an event where you run, bike, then run again. I borrowed a road bike, really a three thousand dollar version of my old Crystal ten speed, and did a duathlon. It was one of the most exhilarating and challenging things I’ve ever done. The next week I went out and bought my own ultra lightweight racing bike and began to ride more and more, entering more duathlons and racking up the miles. As Laurie and I travelled internationally in twenty-eighteen we only did some intermittent bike riding and almost no running. We’ve ridden bikes in Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand.

When the pandemic came I was asked to help out at the bike shop I had worked at decades ago, as the bicycle business was going crazy during the pandemic, setting records month after month. Being around the latest and greatest again led me to learn about electric assist bikes. I sold them, and eventually ended up riding them. Again a fun time with lots of exploring.

In early twenty-twenty-one I had a biopsy for the prostate cancer. They told me to take it easy for a few days. Three days later I was back on the bike for a very brief one mile ride. Bleeding followed. I called into the hospital and the nurse told me to take it easy for the foreseeable future, not just the three days. Bummer.

I did eventually get back on a bike. Once again the latest and greatest, close to the top-of-the-line, straight-bar, electric-assist, built in lights and very expensive. I rode a bunch of times since my diagnosis in twenty-twenty-one but as my body gets more frail, my muscles weaker and my pain increases, it was time. The last bike, in a long line of bikes spanning over sixty years is gone, with the hope of bringing joy to someone else. Sixty years of bicycle riding is now finished. From its humble beginning on a tricycle and then training wheels, watching the old neighbor glide along effortlessly, to its humbling end – parting ways with the latest and greatest, state of the art, electric assist bike. Now in someone else’s home. In someone else’s life. Ready to begin another life. All things must pass.