IT’S ABOUT THE BIKE
I maintained records on my bike, like car owners keep track of oil changes. Like when I last greased the hub.
I stopped with cleaned power chain in 1983. I have winged it since.
My bike has miles on it. I bought it at Heights Furniture & Toy for $169 in 1978. ($586 in today’s dollars.) It’s a 10-speed Kabuki Superlight, which is not super light. The bike has been to both oceans and several foreign countries.
It’s my wife’s fault. When I met her, she was training to be an American Youth Hostels bike trip leader. On our honeymoon, we biked in the Yucatán, where we sucked high-sulfur Mexican truck fumes on jungle roads. It sucked. We parked the bikes in Mérida and took the train to Palenque.
The bike and skipper, 1978, Mexico
These days — particularly on weekends — my bike goes automatically to Chagrin Falls, 12 miles east of my garage. Chagrin Falls is very pleasant.
Chagrin Falls has ice cream shops, a popcorn shop and a bookstore. Along the way, there are hills and valleys. Novelist Don Robertson called Chagrin Falls “Paradise Falls.” The town is, except when I can’t get a free cup of water at Dave’s Cosmic Subs. Lighten up, Dave. How many stores do you own already?
When I’m in southern Ohio on the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure (GOBA), my Kabuki bike is the source of ribbing from bike geeks.
I don’t mind their kidding.
My bike doesn’t mind either.
Ask the bike. Go ahead, ask the bike . . .
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Chagrin Falls, January 10, 2012. Endless summer . . .
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10 comments
We call them “bike weenies” ’round here.
Remember I included Chagrin Falls as one of my “favorite places” in that Habitat article you commented on? I go there frequently, and all birthday trips (coming up for 2012), except the zero years.
Rachel also makes a big point of getting there on her limited time here.
To Brian:
Who’s a “bike weenie”? The bike geeks of the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure, I assume.
To Kenny G:
Just to clarify, you go to Chagrin Falls very year on your birthday, except when the decade turns ( i.e., years ending in “0”)?
I don’t remember the Habitat article.
Right. I really “do” CF [Chagrin Falls] on those days, and then go beyond. This time it may be CF and Hudson, plus seeing something in Tallmadge. It’s often Burton and Middlefield. Last yr. I think I went to Chardon. A few yrs. ago, Hiram. Etc.
I actually mean “zero age years.” Then I’ve gone to “West Side” – Oberlin and beyond.
I wrote Habitat article on my ten favorite places around Cleveland; put a lot of thought into getting the balance and wording it just so, and then you called and said it must have been something I wrote up quickly when I didn’t have anything of substance — a puff piece, so to speak.
I think you complimented it, though.
I never quite got the bike nostalgia. Technology makes the hills flatter — what’s not to like? See you on GOBA!
Note I wrote “called.” [In previous email.] Ah, what did we do before the great “e-mail???”
BTW, I mentioned “Ashland Avenue” in the Habitat article and you asked where it is.
There is the view that if you own and ride one or two bikes you are a bicycle rider. If you own and ride more than a few, you are a cyclist. This would be the bike snob-type position.
Of course, these cyclists tend to be either single or manage to somehow have rather tolerant spouses.
fly as the jackson 5!
It wasn’t all that long ago I got rid of my 1975 Raleigh Record, purchased at Al’s, right at Euclid Heights Blvd & Lee. But it hadn’t been ridden in years.
I own four bikes, which I guess makes me a cyclist.
(1) 2002 Bianchi Volpe (cross-bike), good everyday bike.
(2) 2003 GT Force, road bike for long rides, which you seem to have appropriated as your own :)
(3) 1978 Kabuki-something, purchased in Euclid. Nostalgia bike.
(4) 19?? Schwinn 10-speed which somebody at my apartment complex left behind. Needs maintenance, but rides well.
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