The last road bike I owned was a lime green Schwinn Free Spirit 10 speed that was always out of adjustment and a hit one what little ego I was allowed to have at twelve or thirteen years old. After all, “it was a Schwinn.”
Sometime around 1978 the brakes failed for the last time on a wet down hill road giving me three choices; attempt to pass on the left of the car which had stopped in front me while waiting for an on coming car to pass before turning left its self, attempt to jump a tall curb on the right while trying to dodge a telephone pole at the same time, or ramming the rear end of the “offending” car in my path… I chose the later and ended up going through the rear window of the car. The hospital was only a couple of blocks away but fortunately I only had minor bumps, bruises, scrapes, a few pieces of glass to pick out of my skin, and an end to my bicycle torment.
In 1986 I decided to give Schwinn another chance and picked up what the dealer told me was a ATB. I wanted those cool quick release wheels but the salesman claimed that they were no good for anything but racing and would snap the first time I took the bike off of pavement. I wasn’t convinced and actually was a little put off not being able to get what I wanted but bought the bike anyway because at the time Astoria, OR was a one bike shop town and I was 20 and hot to spend my money. Needless to say I was bikeless again within six months because I needed the money to move to Portland and sold the thing to a friend.
My next bike was a Diamondback Topenga, a proper entry level MTB which I loved for several years until finally attempting to park my car in the garage with the bike still clamped down on the roof rack. Needless to say the bike was still clamped to the rack when the rack tore off the car while skidding across the roof and off the rear end of the car. This though had a silver lining. Thank God for home owner’s insurance which gave me enough to buy a new bike. It was good timing too because I worked at the Seattle REI and was able to pro-deal my first real MTB, a Bianchi Superbee. As far as mountain biking goes, this bike was the love of my life. When I moved to Arizona to go back to school the bike was perfect but eventually I moved to the Hudson Valley in NY where biking anywhere is a is course in road survival not to mention the commute was long and complicated: wake up before sunrise every morning dive my son for 45 minutes across the Kingston bridge to Woodstock and then drive another 30 minutes to my office in Kingston. Even if I didn’t take my son to school every morning it would have been brutal especially during the five months of winter. I should mention that my wife had more guts than me and even in the winter commuted into Rhinebeck on many days. But I always played the melodrama and told my wife that if I were killed along a road that I didn’t want to be remembered with a roadside memorial. So the Bianchi went into the shed where it lived until we moved back to the west coast in the San Juan Islands.
After years off the saddle and getting fat we started to do bike tours. Something my wife had done for years before meeting me to her misfortune. But besides the obvious mechanical challenges something just isn’t right about using a MTB as a tourer and both my Bianchi and my body rejected my attempts to convince them otherwise. So for the last several years and usually while on a tour in the Gulf Islands, I dreamt of a proper road bike, once and for all! After the last tour of the Gulf Island, on an uphill section of Salt Spring Island to be exact, I finally resolved to get a real tour bike.
Thank goodness for friends in high places as my friends who owned part of my LBS said they would give me a good deal on a bike so at the beginning of this year (2008) as part of my promise to myself and the only kind of New Years resolution I could keep, I picked up a Utility Blue Surly Long Haul Trucker (LHT). As a volunteer fire fighter and EMT my dept is also concerned about the number one killer of fire fighters, heart attacks. So during the last quarter of 2007 they got everyone memberships the local gym. To top it all off, my work allowed me to take off in the mornings to work out. The stars and moon had finally all aligned and since I’ve lost around 15lbs of fat while gaining it back in muscle. I have gotten serious about my health for the first time since 1996 and am on the right track. I’m also riding (even in the winter) around our island and can’t wait until this summer’s tour when we will take two weeks and will try to get to the Discovery Islands.
Hurrah for my Utility Blue Steel bike and the open road!
