Bicycle Heaven

It’s Gratituesday! I’m grateful that I’ve rediscovered my bicycle.

About four years ago I told myself I wanted to “access my inner twenty-year old.” I didn’t think that’d be very difficult, since mentally I mostly feel twenty years old anyway. In fact, when I accidentally catch a view of myself in a mirror I’m always surprised by the older face staring back at me. I sometimes don’t even recognize who it is.

Now I’m thinking I should have stretched a little further and tried to reach my inner sixteen year-old. That chick could haul herself up a two-mile hill on her ten-speed bike and still ride another twenty miles. A fearless, nearly worry-free young woman zipping around traffic, taking a break at the local college campus duck pond, she could eat three Dunkin’ Donuts with no concern whatsoever for their calorie count or nutritional value. She didn’t care what anyone else thought about her either.

What a life. What a woman!

Where did she go?

She’s still in here. I found her a few weeks ago when I bravely strapped on my bike helmet, hefted my leg over my mountain bike’s seat and set out on a short two-mile ride. She and I rode four miles instead and felt amazingly free and energized.

Then we rode the next day, a bit further, a bit faster.

Last Friday that inner sixteen year-old and I went almost nine miles and had energy to spare.

A short break to admire the view.

We prefer trails and winding paths to roads and sidewalks and will search those out in the weeks and months ahead. Will she and I attempt any mountain trails? Nah, probably not. I do, after all, still have the body of a middle-aged woman, one that hasn’t been very well cared for or pampered. But it’s healthy enough that it can take me and the inner sixteen year-old out on some adventures, beyond the walking paths of the local bird refuge, beyond strolling the city park.

Something crazy happens when I’m sitting in the seat of a bicycle. I can’t define it or decipher it. Freedom, maybe. Youth, perhaps. Self-sufficiency, could be. Whatever it is, I don’t feel like I’m “acting my age” when I’m pedaling a bike. But that’s not important. Who says I can’t ride? No one.

Oh, and don’t worry. No spandex is harmed or used in the making of this wondrous experience. I go more for the rugged-mountain-biker-who’s-been-lost-in-the-woods-too-long look. And I do slow down when I’m in the vicinity of rabbits. They seem confused by humans on bicycles and can dart in front of you with no warning. (A very similar experience to driving a car around Phoenix.)

I’ve had people laugh at me on my bike.Yeah, it happens. I don’t have a svelte biker’s body, hardly. (Hence, no spandex.) But I have the soul and heart of a young girl on her aunt’s hand me down 1950’s bike. That girl discovered something wonderful when the wind blew her hair out of her eyes as she propelled herself anywhere she wanted to go.

That young girl, that teenager, this middle-aged woman, we’re all grateful for two wheels, a well-oiled chain and pedals to take us anywhere we want to go anytime we want to go there.

Life doesn’t get much better than that.