I don’t think I realized how much I’ve missed riding in the warm weather until a few minutes ago. Sitting here, working on another story (a story about Dean and MaryLou, if you can believe it), I paused for a moment and leaned my head back. Without even trying, I found myself riding east on 78th Street a few weeks after I bought the Giant. I remember this like it was yesterday (there’s a cliché of a statement if there ever was one). After a few laps in Central Park, I was heading home and as I approached Park Avenue, I spotted a vixen on a bike up ahead, waiting for the light. As I pulled next to her, I smiled and nodded hello. She did the same, which is surprising considering how most serious cyclists never seem to bother themselves with anything that even remotely resembles courtesy (which until this day still strikes me as arrogant and fucked up).
I say this girl was a serious cyclist based on her gear: sexy Cervelo bike with those time trial bar extensions, serious Sidi cycling shoes with Look pedals, wrap-around Nike sunglasses, and a skin-tight white and maroon jersey on top of black lycra shorts.
I, on the other hand, was wearing Kenny Picco’s old blue helmet complete with the swath of velcro on top, a baggy t-shirt, regular gym shorts, no sunglasses (I still don’t have a good pair of sunglasses), and flat pedals.
“Nice bike,” I said.
“Thanks.” The girl smiled again and, when the light turned green, I was the first to go considering I didn’t have cleats to deal with.
On the corner of Lexington Avenue, we again pulled next to one another.
“Riding in the park?” I asked. This may sound like a pick-up move, but it wasn’t. Really. Just making conversation on a Saturday morning.
“Yep.”
“How many laps, if you don’t mind me asking?” She seemed like a good rider and I was curious to find out how many laps a “serious” rider would complete.
“Only two,” she said. “I have a race tomorrow.”
“Really?”
The light turned green and off we went again. On the corner of Third Avenue, we stopped for another red light.
“How long is the race?” I asked.
“Only twenty-five miles, but it’s a hilly course.”
“How do you find out about bicycle races?”
The girl shrugged. “Magazines, online . . .”
“Are you going to win?” I asked.
She laughed. “I don’t know.”
The light turned green and we rode side-by-side. I glanced over and said, “That’s totally the wrong attitude. You have to go to that line thinking that you’re the baddest mother out there.”
The girl glanced at me, unsure what to say. Once we passed Second Avenue, I nodded toward the side of the street and started to brake. “This is me. Good luck tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” she said, gliding by on her red and black Cervelo. “So long.”
Never saw her again, but that’s beside the point. What is the point? Not just riding in the warm weather, but riding in the warm weather when you first started riding. As kids, everyone rides a bike, but not for the same reasons we ride now. As a kid, you ride a bike because it’s faster than walking. You ride because that’s just what kids do. Eventually the day arrives when your mom or dad broke out that first bike and said, “Here it is, kiddo.” For those of us reading this page, this probably happened some time in the sixties or seventies. Personally, I became the owner of my first bike around 1979 or so, near the time I turned six. It was white and maroon and had a striped banana seat and training wheels. After a few hours of riding in the parking lot down at Gateway Park, the training wheels came off, although I think it also had streamers hanging out of the bar ends, which would have been cool.
Anyway, you didn’t ride to get in shape back then because you were already in shape. You rode because that’s just what kids do--they ride bikes. When you reached your teen years, you probably had some sort of BMX machine and you rode because you were too young to drive. Imagine if you had to walk everywhere in those days? Christ, that would have taken forever, or you never would have made it anywhere. Still, the furthest my friends and I would typically ride on a summer evening was the 7-Eleven on the corner of Lincoln and North Railroad. Between Slurpees and candy bars (typically stolen candy bars by hiding them in the Slurpees), we spent countless hours practicing freestyle tricks in the convenient store’s parking lot, which I’m sure must have driven the owners relatively insane, but there were worse things we could have been doing, right?
Afterward, once I started driving, I never touched a bike. To me, a road bike was simply a “ten-speed,” and I’m sure a lot of other people referred to and thought of road bikes the same way. Either way, ten-speeds were a major pain in the ass considering those levers you had to use to shift gears and they never seemd to work correctly and all that crap. With all that in mind, I never went near a ten-speed.
Years ago, though, I did manage to hop on a mountain bike a few times with Mr. Picco when he used to ride (notice the past tense, “used to” ride, Mr. Picco), although I never cared much for trudging through the woods in the sweltering heat and humidity. Heat I can handle, although humidity, especially in the woods, was typically enough so that one afternoon I simply turned around and left while everyone else kept riding. Quite simply, mountain biking wasn’t my thing. I preferred my dirtbike and riding motocross--something on which I could simply twist the throttle and go.
The only other time I found myself on a bike was during college. Having to complete a certain number of phys-ed credits, I enrolled in the College of Staten Island’s cycling class, which meant riding a beat-up mountain bike on the road for a few hours once a week. At the time, maybe I was twenty-one or twenty-two. Even after having smoked for a few years, I could still climb Todt Hill Road without breaking much of a sweat wearing jeans, a work jacket, and construction boots. Then again, most guys who grew up active in any sort of athletics would have done the same. The only hill I couldn’t manage during that class was the backside of Hillside Terrace. I don’t recall the exact name of the street, but rather than climb up toward Wagner College from Clove Road, we made the approach from the other end. Considering the instructor forbid all the men in the class from shifting off the largest front sprocket, I made it halfway up and then called it quits. That damn hill is simply too steep for the big chain ring.
And now, more than ten years later, I bought a “ten-speed” on a whim; bought in the hopes I would enjoy it more than spending a few hours a week in a gym, indoors, trying to get in shape. I bought the bike and went for a ride in Prospect Park with Mr. Picco the same morning, getting the feel for the shifting between low and tall gears. Later that afternoon, I took the bike on the ferry, got off downtown, and pedaled up the West side until I reached the Boathouse and then made a right, cutting home to the Upper East Side. This was July 4th, 2006. R&A was probably one of the only bike shops open that day.
In the coming weeks, I would ride in the evening after work in Central Park. Climbing up the hill, wearing my baggy t-shirts and gym shorts with Kenny’s blue helmet (complete with velcro strap), I marveled at the other riders who would not only pass me, but continue to pedal once they reached the top. Coasting down the backside, I would ask myself, Do these guys ever stop pedaling?
Soon the days turned into weeks and I eventually invested in my first pair of cycling shorts (to save my aching guiche), short-fingered gloves, my own helmet, and a pair of cycling shoes so I could finally spin the way I wanted to spin. Needless to say, my first evening out in the clipless shoes and I quickly fell over on the corner of 79th Street and Third Avenue. How embarrassing.
I don’t know how it really happened, although despite the pain every rider experiences when pushing up a hill, I wanted more. As a lot of other cyclists say, “I got the bug,” and while I enjoyed returning home from work every day, getting dressed, and hitting the park for a few laps almost every evening, I enjoyed the weekend rides even more. Why? There’s something about bright yellow summer sunshine that simply lifts the mood, isn’t there? When Saturday rolls around, there’s no need for an alarm. You get up around seven or eight (depending upon how much you had to drink the previous evening), take your time over breakfast, take your time getting dressed, check the air pressure in the tires, take the bike outside, take a deep breath of summer air, smile, and off you go. It’s on those Saturdays when it’s neither too hot nor too chilly and the sun’s up overhead that cycling feels as good as it should. You ride down the road and maybe there’s a mountain in the distance, or just a short but steep hill, but it’s not that bad. Even when you’re climbing, it’s not that bad because if you’re alone, you can always stop and if you do, it’s not like you’re going to freeze in the cold wind. It’s summer. It’s sunny. The sky’s blue and the water in your bottle is still cold. You might be out of breath and sweating against your sweat-wicking jersey, but it’s all okay. Again, it’s summer and you’re out riding either alone or with friends. What could be worse?
As I leaned by head back a few moments ago, that’s everything that ran through the ol’ noggin. Riding in the summer. Ah, April can’t come soon enough.
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