My first bike was a Christmas present. Oddly enough, it was also pink like the Freaky Bee—the bike I ride now. (Ok, so maybe not quite as vibrant, more of a ballet-pink than a neon, bossy-diva pink, but pink nonetheless.) It had sparkling streamers on the handlebars and a white basket with multi-colored daisies on the front that I’d later employ to fetch the Sunday paper from the newspaper vending box on the corner, when I finally learned to ride it without training wheels. That was something I, at the ripe old age of four, vehemently fought against. No, I won’t ride a two-wheel bike, then understanding something about gravity and what it would probably feel like to fall on the cement sidewalk.
I’ve always been stubborn, a personality quirk that can be as useful as it can be damning. I’m remarkably good at sticking to a training schedule or a particular workout, even if neither one of those things is pleasant. When I’m injured, though, that stubbornness often works against me, so I train through sprains, strains, tendonitis, etc. So, on the week that I achieve a true 300-watt mile (310 watts to be exact, a personal best I’ve been vying for for nearly two years), I’ve done so at the expense of yet another injury, on that simply won’t go away, which is annoying.
Instead of giving you the ordinary laundry-list of training details, recovery tips, workout ideas and other essentials for a 525-endurance ride, I thought I’d take a break all from that and share some holiday stories with you. Because, well, it’s the holidays.
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Let me just say that not one of my four parents was ever, remotely, a cyclist. I look back on this truth and think it’s rather incredible that the gift of a bike was something that ever came to mind not only once, but multiple times. My first bike-gift happened at age 4. It was Santa’s present at my mom’s house. Eight years later, I was gifted the slightly larger “Huffy Lightning” version at my dad’s house, and as much as I loved it, I didn’t ride that bike much because he lived on a hill, which meant I always had to ride uphill in at least one direction, and on a Huffy, that isn’t really all that fun.
My first bike was a thing of beauty. Totally feminine (in today’s parlance, I’d say it was something of a unicorn bike: sparkling and without training wheels because that bike was meant to fly.) But, like I mentioned above there was no way in hell I thought I could ride a bike like that when I first got it. I was 110% sold on training wheels because my friends had them, and there was no convincing me otherwise.
My stepfather, in a rare show of patience, really did try to convince me I could. He spent hours holding the pristine white seat, trying to show me that there wasn’t really anything to be afraid of. That the bike would right itself just so long as I kept pedaling. Up and down the sidewalk at a house about a block and a half from where I live now— he held onto my seat for hours.
We’d probably tell different versions of this story, but the gist of it was this: his back probably hurt from all that running behind me on that little bike, and he had other things to do. (As an adult, this is probably what I would be thinking, had we swapped spots.) So, as I pedaled forward, oblivious after an hour of riding with his hand steading me, he sort of just let me go. And, because I’m also very good at being oblivious, I pedaled for a while before I noticed I was riding without a balance assist.
I’d gotten well in front of the neighbor’s house and turned around sharply to confirm my sneaking suspicion that I was alone. This, of course, turned the front wheel, stopping my forward momentum and I crashed on the cement sidewalk, which hurt as much as I knew it would.
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I did eventually learn how to ride, though, and it was a delicious form of freedom. Early Sunday morning, it was my job to ride to the orange newspaper vending box a block away to grab the Sunday paper. On Sundays, I’d wake up, collect the 35 cents (usually a quarter a dime) from my stepfather and then ride the pink bike to the orange box on the corner to fetch the thick-sheeted volume which included the funnies ( I couldn’t wait to see how many lasagnas Garfield the cat had eaten, what bizarre-but-funny situation would be dished up by The Far Side, what that bitch Lucy had done to Charlie Brown in Peanuts and as much as I hate to admit it, I had a soft spot in my heart for Family Circus— such a wholesome form of funny.) I should have been good at fetching the Sunday paper, but as I’ve come to appreciate as an adult: if some process can be screwed up, I will inevitably do exactly that.
There was the Sunday when, inexplicably, our orange newspaper vending box didn’t have the Sunday edition of the paper in it. (In retrospect, I guess they just forgot to deliver it that week.) I stared at it for a good twenty minutes that day, trying to see if maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. I hated to go home needlessly empty-handed, so I paid the 35 cents and gathered whatever scraps were left in the box in my little white basket with the daisies on it and carried all that junk home.
“What the hell is this?” is the response I got when I handed over the relics of what other newspaper readers hadn’t wanted from the last week’s edition, which was primarily ads from places like JC Penny’s, Mervyn’s and the grocery store. Maybe it was some nouveau form of journalism? I shrugged, not being snide as much as I was clueless. That was a hard lesson in trusting your own instincts.
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The worst, though, happened when I was a bit older. Ten maybe? It was about the time I’d started reading books with chapters that had utilized more sophisticated descriptions than simply attaching adverbs or adjectives to short sentences. It was early morning—cold, as I remember— so I could see my breath in front of me as I pedaled toward the newspaper vending box on yet another Sunday morning.
The neighborhood at that hour was deserted and I think for the first time, I realized how quiet it was. I also noticed the quality of light (something authors wrote about in the books I was reading) and I noticed how the spokes on my front wheel caught and sparkled in the morning light, while the shadow imprinted on the pavement was a kaleidoscope of pattern, movement and light. It was, I believed, a sight that was both brilliant and beautiful.
That was my last thought before I collided head-on with a red Ford pickup truck with a camper on the bed. The impact nearly knocked me senseless, and it took me a good five minutes to get my bearings because that truck hadn’t been parked there the night before. I remember looking up at the window on the back of the camper and marveled at the imprinted likeness of my face on the window. My bike stood upright, and was wedged firmly beneath the rear bumper.
Well, that’s lucky, I thought. I didn’t scratch the frame at all! I tried to pull my bike free, and it wouldn’t budge. I tried again— still no luck. I thought about going home and admitting what I’d done. Yet, I knew from past Sundays what happened when I didn’t show up with the paper, so I kept yanking and yanking. Then, taking a breather, talking myself up and going at it again. It took a good 30 minutes to free my bike, to go to the newspaper vending box, and to get home again.
What took you so long? I was asked.
I honestly don’t remember what I said: I only remember that I’d rather die than admit I’d hit a parked car with my bike because I hadn’t been paying attention.
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Interlude: I was in my twenties, and stopped by Great Basin Bicycles to buy cycling shoes for my commute from Truckee to Homewood. It was Rich’s day off.
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I was quite a bit older— 32— and back in Reno after three graduate degrees and a considerable amount of student loan debt. It was the holiday season, and I was teaching four sections of English 101 at the University of Nevada, Reno, and had just learned that enrollment dropped, so I was out of a job in a few weeks, just after the New Year.
For that and other reasons, it had been a tough year, and when my parents (my dad and stepmom) asked me what I wanted for Christmas that year—I could have anything, they said— I answered that I wanted to do an Ironman distance triathlon to prove to myself that I was stronger than I believed I was, and to give myself hope. They graciously sponsored my entry fee, but it was up to me to figure out the training.
My friend, Tanna who trained with me at the UNR Triathlon Club, encouraged me to drop by a local bike shop called Great Basin Bicycles for some amazing thing I’d never heard of called “CompuTrainer Classes.” I hate to say it, but by that time in my life, I’d had enough of bike shops and the men who worked in them who always made a point to make me feel small and stupid. She kept asking, though, and sometime around Christmas, I gave in.
So, that was how I met Rich Staley who probably has his own round of stories about how stubborn I am, but who got me to the starting line and podium of not only an Ironman, but a handful of cycling races.
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And that is how I have a pink Freaky Bee bike, a fiancé and so much to be grateful for this year.
I wish you all the very best this holiday season: may it be filled with friendship, love, and bikes (if you’re into that.) If not, dogs or cats will suffice.
Or maybe the Sunday paper.
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