Neil Anderson

Even though Princeton, BC, is in the heart of some of the best biking in Canada for both touring cyclists and mountain bikers, I never once considered -- or imagined -- getting on one of those twiddle-your-legs-in-a-circle contraptions. Oh, sure, I had seen multitudes of touring cyclists ride past my front door on BC's Highway 3. Heck, I had even offered water to a couple of them. But, had I ever regarded doing such a thing as bicycle touring myself? It sure didn't look like fun to me: torturous uphills, broiling in the sun, wind howling in one's face, at the complete mercy of the weather god's entire precipitation arsenal. It just didn't make sense to me. Especially for fun!? Why would one do that when they had a car? Then, one day ...

jabike

Yup, then one day you found the BikeForums and you knew immediately, almost as if it was a prophetic encounter with all of creation, exactly what life and your past experiences were preparing you for. Welcome to your destiny, Neil.

keayne

Neil Anderson,
then one day, you got on your bike...and here you are... welcome

Neil Anderson

Yep, fate and destiny, no doubt. I moved to Edmonton, Alberta to make my fame and fortune. Meeting a little biker girl there proved to be my undoing. There I was, an affirmed petrol head -- the proud owner of not one, but three cars. The little biker girl, on the other hand, didn't even own a car. She rode a bike everywhere.

jabike

Didn't the Beach Boys write a song about that...Little biker little one made my heart come all undone
Do you love me, do you biker girl

Neil Anderson

God Only Knows but Wouldn’t It Be Nice to pick up some Good Vibrations for Bikin’ USA?

jabike

That's what I sang as I rode my 28 mile ride last night...
If everybody had an bike lane
Across the USA
Then everybody'd be cyclin' like California...

KirkeIsWaiting

Oh....I love this story. I must ride more so someone discovers me...(wiping the sappy tears from my eyes)

Neil Anderson

Before bumping into me, little biker girl had gone on a couple of fully loaded self-supported bicycle tours through British Columbia, Washington State, and the Rocky Mountains.

So, there I was, very happily living to polish my cars, when, somewhere off stage left, little biker girl was about to enter the scene. At the time, little biker girl was completing a Business and Commerce degree at the University of Alberta. She was working weekends and nights at a west end racquet club to help pay for tuition and books, and, no doubt, snazzy titanium components. I was a member at the racquet club and played every day. Sooner or later, it was inevitable that our paths would cross.

jabike

Being inevitable, is it possible that there is a little biker girl for each person that continues to ride...if only...hmm...get back in the saddle and sing...I, I love the colorful clothes she wears
And the way the sunlight plays upon her hair
I hear the sound of a gentle word
On the wind that lifts her perfume through the air

I'm pickin' up good vibrations
She's giving me excitations
I'm pickin' up good vibrations...little biker girl where are you???

Neil Anderson

Oh, yeah, there's definitely a little biker out there for each of us.

One evening, after the little biker girl got off work, I invited her to join me for a pizza. There, between bites, she regaled me with tales from her previous cycle tours. There, between bites, I pretended to be interested. Would I ever do such a thing? Not in this lifetime, I figured. After all, I had a car.

jabike

Biker girl rides a bike and has the smell of pizza on her breath? I would say by this time you didn't stand a chance. What a one two punch!

KirkeIsWaiting

C'mon guys, don't leave me hangin'.
Closing my eyes and making a wish.....

Neil Anderson

Ah, you underestimate me, Grasshopper.

I continued to see little biker girl at the racquet club. Nothing serious. Then, one evening, after little biker girl finished her shift, I thought it too dark for her to safely ride her bicycle home. Being a chivalrous sort of fellow, I offered to give her a lift. After some insistence, little biker girl agreed. The only problem: How was I going to fit her bike into my car? I had never realized bicycles were so dang big. My recommendation was she leave her bike at the racquet club and she could walk or take a bus the next day to retrieve it. However, the little biker girl took a firm stand and asserted she needed her bike in the morning for commuting to university. Expertly, she flipped a couple of chromed quick-release levers, and before I could say “Wha-a-at?” she had removed the wheels from her cycle. Between little biker girl’s admonishments to be careful with her rims, I shoehorned the whole shebang into the rear seat of my black and gold Trans Am, all the while endeavouring to not get grease on my lovely ruby-red upholstery.

jabike

Come on, I know your heart was fluttering as she expertly released the tension on the front axle and removed the wheel from its slots. And then as she turned her attention to the rear wheel and with the greatest of dexterity disengaged it from the chain by gently nudging the deraileur into just the perfect position, your heart was beating an ancient rhythm that kept telling your soul that you must... oh, it has become so imperative... that you too learn to manipulate a machine of such beauty with equal dexterity. But, your apprehension was probably unwarranted when the subject of getting grease on your ruby-red upholstery filled you thoughts. A real biker girl would not allow grease to build up. She would habitually cleanse away all such grime keeping the drivetrain in an absolutely immaculate condition.

Neil Anderson

Yep, it sparkled and shone with a heavenly aura ... clean enough to eat off of ... but what did I know? My ruby-red upholstery....

In a few minutes, we arrived at little biker girl’s residence. I carefully extricated her bicycle from the back seat. Holding the bike while she reinstalled the wheels, I noticed moonlight, filtering through overhead leafy trees, strike little biker girl’s features most remarkably. I had never noticed before ... at least not consciously. That little biker girl was seriously cute. (Of course one can't depend on that light.) But I was smitten. And for the first time ever, I thought perhaps bike touring didn't sound so bad. After all, there's a lot of moonlit nights.

jabike

Yes, yes, we already knew you were smitten. But, please, without further ado, please tell us what the bike looked like in that same filtered moonlight. I know it had to have a special glow after she proudly and expertly titillated its most curvaceous pieces, reassembling them with that special skill only known through many experiences.

Neil Anderson

Hmmm, to tell the truth, I hardly noticed the bike’s voluptuous sensuous magnificence. Being of pure and vestal modesty, I had no appreciation for such matters. Sad, I know.

But that moonlight definitely made my heart shift gears. I began going out in earnest with little biker girl (she liked my legs), even though little biker girl’s friends weren't enthralled that she was going out with a non-biker. How could anything like that last? But I liked her -- she always laughed at my silly jokes -- and once I make up my mind about something, I can be like a pit bull on a postman....

In fact, I had fallen so hard, the next Saturday, I borrowed a roommate’s old clunker of a department store ten speed (it actually had only three usable gears -- not that it mattered much, since I didn’t dare take my hands off the handlebars to shift anyway).

Little biker girl took me on a local bike path. My gosh! What tough work! Edmonton's scenic bike trails are in the river valley, meandering alongside the North Saskatchewan River. Little biker girl figured a nice romp would be from where I lived in the west end, along the river to the city's east end, then back again -- a distance of perhaps 40 kilometres. For me -- someone who had never been on a bicycle much in my entire life -- it seemed an impossibly long way. And the trails, particularly in the east, grew ever more undulating, like some sort of out of control roller coaster ride -- only not nearly as much fun. My sore wrists; my clenched teeth; my legs possessed of more rubber than the tires on the bike I was astride wasn’t making for a real amusing time. And my bottom -- holy catfish! -- I thought I was straddling some old porcupine. I became so fatigued, on one downhill with a sharp corner at the bottom, I let the bike race headlong, going faster and faster until it was careening recklessly like a runaway rickshaw with bent wheels. (Just between you and me, I secretly hoped that if I crashed, at least my butt-numbing ride from Hades would be over.) But my experience as a motorcycle rider saved my bacon. I leaned precariously, and somehow made it around the curve. Two hours later, eventually back home, smitten or not, I declared forever and nevermore would I ever go on any more bike rides. Little did I know...

JeffreyHFields

that's why I moved from my upright to the bent...no more porccupine feeling between the legs...but enough biology....tell us more about you and biker chick...

Neil Anderson

Porcupine sensations. Sounds like a prickly subject! Did I ever tell you about the first bicycle Little Biker Girl bought for me?

Rowan

You are a cruel man, Anderson, you are a cruel man... making all these romantics wait for the whole story