genec

I commute on roads that typically are mutilaned, where motorists travel at 45+MPH... this requires that I remain focused and concentrate on traffic more than on the simple pleasure of the ride.

The other riding I do tends to be of the group training variety... Not the huge pelotons of riders, but 4-5 friends out pushing each other hard to keep up the pace.

That said, I tend to ride in cycling shorts, helmet, gloves and with specialized shoes and while focusing on the task at hand.

But I do have more than one bike... (3 actually) and the one that doesn't get ridden much is a fat tire, curved top tube, tractor seated Huffy like knock off, that I picked up at a garage sale some 4-5 years ago. It didn't have a seat, nor pedals at that point... but I could just see the potential in that $10 bike that I really have not explored enough until just recently.

I bought the bike for beach cruising... figuring to driving it down to the local beach boardwalk and cruise up and down the MUP on nice summer days. And I've done that once or twice. The pace is slow; the boardwalk is crowded with walkers, skaters, skateboarders and all manner of humanity in all manner of undress. But the bottom line is that a lot of weaving in and out is the order of the day. Certainly it is fun, but more like being a rolling pedestrian on a sidewalk than anything else.

But the other day... late in the evening, I was moving bikes around in the garage and there stood the cruiser... tires low on air, a couple spider webs in the spokes... and the bike looked sad... it cried for attention. So I stopped what I was doing and took notice. The warmth of the day was slipping away quickly... the sun was starting to paint the sky a light shade of orange, and soon darkness would fall. I made up my mind. Quickly, I put pump to valve and filled the fat whitewalls... I was gonna cruise the neighborhood and take advantage of the now longer evening in whatever fading light remained.

It was great... I jumped on the bike in the worn cutoffs I was wearing to clean the garage... wearing only old boat shoes on my feet... no fancy shoes, no helmet, no gloves.

The wind whispered through my hair... the cool evening air felt great on my face and skin. The heavy bike rolled along like the tank it is... the fat wheels easily smoothing any small road imperfections.... The sun continued to sink in the west, with the orange color slowly shifting to red, but the waning globe was still visible above the horizon. Traffic was non-existent... the quiet residential streets being only traveled by locals. It was a wonderful ride... my legs pumping along as if I was riding any of my other bikes, feeling the strain of the heavier rotational velocity of the fat tires, vice the challenge of a hill.

All in all, it reminded me of a simpler, easier, time... yet the ride still had all the thrill of moving faster than I could ever walk... or run. Whee...

So I tried it again the next day... And sure enough, it was just as exhilarating. Feeling the cool evening air on my arms and face, wearing only comfortable shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, bathed in the waning reddish evening light... cruising down the the slow neighborhood streets while the remains of rush hour, only a few blocks away, roared in the somewhat distant background. Just the joy of riding a bike without facing that crush of "intent homeward bound motorists" was enough to buoy me into going farther and farther along... the freedom of a quiet open street calling me. I loved it. The purity of riding a bike with nary a thought of holding a lane, or the scream of a blaring horn... it was incredibly liberating. It was exactly the feeling that prompted HG Wells to think: "Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of mankind." There I was... flying along on two wheels just soaking up the cool evening air... what more could I ask?

So two simple rides (and there will be more) without the crush of traffic... enjoying just the simplest of rides in and around my local neighborhood on the fat comfortable tires of my heavy old tank of a cruiser; that was heaven on two wheels. It just underlined what cycling was all about... not the specialized clothing, not the dealing with motorists, not the high tech aspects of complicated materials, nor even the need to shift gears. Nope, the wonder and joy were simply in moving along softly and silently under my own power for the sheer pleasure it brings.

Heaven has to include bicycles.

Helmet Head

Nice piece, Gene.

I recently picked up a used Burley Piccolo (trailercycle) for my 6 year old daughter. She has 7 speeds, but is not yet strong enough to move the shifter. It attaches via a special rack (as opposed to the seat post) and so is very stable. I have rack for my mountain bike, and one for the road tandem. We haven't tried it on the tandem yet, but I've used it on the mountain bike out in the desert, and riding around the 'hood. Just the other evening we went cruising up and down the streets of Mt. Soledad. Quote of the evening, as we were going up a wall of a street at 3 mph: "Why are we going so slow?" I would have laughed out loud except my lungs were too depleted. More evidence that heaven is here on earth.

Roody

I'm glad you got to take a fun ride Gene. I'm lucky to have the time (and temperament) to take fun rides pretty much 365 days a year. I also have a bike that is at home on the streets, country roads, and even gentle singletracks.

Today (my day off) I rode downtown to eat brunch at the City Market. Then I took our Rivertrail a few miles, and veered off to ride on the singletrack through a big forest, followed by a couple fast laps around a lake on a MUP.

noisebeam

Just about every night, especially summer ones when the light lasts long, I go for a few mile ride thru my residential neighborhood, across the freeway access road (on the sidewalk), loop around an adjacent neighborhood, wave to familiar and new faces, ride thru the park on the MUP, over the pedestrian bridge (ok, its called a bike/ped bridge, but lets not go there, this thread is about the pleasure of biking )
Usually on my fixed gear, stopping to watch the sunset and have a cool drink, no helmet, no gloves, riding wherever I want in the road as there is so little traffic (usually the most 'complex' thing to deal with are kids playing catch or kickball in the street.) If I stay out past dark I don't worry about lack of lights as I can see by street/moon light and if a rare car comes along I can avoid them by riding up on ramped curb even if they can't see me.

Al

John E

Gene's post demonstrates why we need traffic-calmed neighborhoods with INTERCONNECTED lower-speed roads. I don't miss the smog or the overall congestion, but the one BIG benefit of bicycling in west or west-central Los Angeles versus San Diego County was that I could almost always plot a reasonably efficient route which avoided fast, narrow lanes or "advanced" intersections. It is impossible to go very far in San Diego County without getting on a prime arterial with fast, heavy traffic.