Bike Guy

In my life, that is. I've always had this jones for two wheeled transportation, and I can tell you (in lurid detail) about every bicycle I've ever owned. In high school, I updated a ten speed that I had as a kid to make it faster. My parents thought I was nuts, spending money on a bicycle when I'd be driving in a year or so. It didn't matter - even after I got my license, I STILL rode. I was a man possessed - I'd ride the four miles to work, spend all day wrenching on cars in the hot summer sun, ride home, go out for ANOTHER ride, then come home and wrench on the bike. I'd repack bearings, true wheels, adjust brakes - sometimes just tear shit down to clean it and rebuild it.

I sold that bike just before college and spent my money on a new Fuji 12 speed. In college, cycling was one of the ways I'd decompress from the pressures of life. I quickly adapted to the higher altitude (I went to school in Colorado), and began riding Flagstaff Mountain - the "toughest two miles in Boulder". Flagstaff was a bitch of a climb, and by the time you got to the summit you were exhausted. Your lungs were on fire, your legs like lifeless stumps - even your arms and chest hurt from wrenching on the bars during the climb. Now came the fun part: the 60 mph balls-out descent down the mountain. I rode like a lunatic, tucked for even more speed, molten rubber from my brake pads spraying on my bare legs. I'd throw the bike into corners with little regard for personal safety (or the laws of physics). I remember one time when I hit a patch of sand mid corner; the rear wheel slid out, my body dropped and I had a split second to contemplate flesh and lycra hitting pavement at warp speed. An act of God saved my ass, and the rear tire hooked up at the last second. Hard to beat the adrenaline rush from THAT one...

I've still got bicycles (three as I write this), but life doesn't allow me all that much time to ride these days. When I do, it's mostly trails - just got a new mountain bike and handed my old one off to the missus. Selling my road bike, because the roads by me are NOT conducive to cycling. Too much traffic, too many blind corners, too many idiot drivers on cell phones.

Still, there is a feeling you get on a bicycle that's unlike any other feeling in the world. Every action, regardless how subtle, has an effect on your motion. It's probably as close to flying as we can get without wings.

Perhaps it's a coincidence, but the best motorcycle riders I know are (or were) rabid cyclists. Call it the cult of two wheels.