As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!
If you grew up in small town America you know exactly what I’m talking about. Bike riding wasn’t just a means of transportation from point A to point B, it was an end in and of itself. As in, “Let’s ride bikes.”
To this day, I can picture myself decorating the single speed with training wheels and riding through town for the 4th of July Parade. I can feel the pain from the torn off finger nail when I fell off my first big girl bike racing a neighbor around the block. I can almost taste the exhilaration of sneaking out at midnight with a friend to ride my brother’s bike to my boyfriend’s house. And I can remember hanging out with friends atop my first 10-speed in the Cumberland Farms’ parking lot.
Even though I live in the city now and almost always wear a helmet, riding bikes still feels essentially the same to me – like freedom.
So today I celebrate not the utility of a bike, but the open air, the euphoria of coasting with no hands on the handlebars, the riskiness of riding someone’s pegs and the friends who’d call up the ol’ land line and say, “Let’s ride bikes!”
Tags: celebration, change, freedom
wenonah 4th of july parade!!!! remember riding bikes to the pool? omg what would we have done w/o our bikes …
Amen — riding IS freedom.
Thanks for bringing this breath of air into this rainy Feb day!
Val – I have no idea what we would have done without bikes!
Paula – you are most welcome!
[...] For those of you who only understand The Garden State’s geography in relation to the New Jersey Turnpike, my stop growing up was Exit 3. Exit 3 dumps you into land that is a beautiful alchemy of rural, suburban and small-town America. You can get a flavor by reading this post. [...]