Originally Posted by Papa Tom

I live and work in the town in which I was born and raised, so just about every local ride for me is nostalgic.

Growing up here was just one long summer afternoon on a junky single-speed bicycle, getting out of the neighborhood with my friends and riding to ridiculously far away places without ever having to "explain" to our parents. At ten years old, we were bicycling to malls and parks that I barely feel comfortable driving to all these decades later. Often, I will be in my car, stopped at a traffic light on a busy six-lane turnpike, and I will think to myself "I can't believe I used to ride my Schwinn Stingray on this road." Other times, I'll be biking to work on a skinny blacktop path through my local town park and I'll envision my seven-year-old legs struggling to pedal up those gigantic hills that now feel flat as pancakes.

Mostly, I am keenly aware that the ride I took yesterday and the ride I will take tomorrow will someday be among the nostalgic rides of "the good old days," so I never take a single pedal stroke for granted.