Bicycles

Here I am on my 8th birthday in 1969 on my brand new bike. It's too bad the picture isn't in color. The bike was stop light green and had a white banana seat - all the rage in the late 60s. I rode that bike to school every day and all over the neighborhood.

Flash forward to when I was 12 or 13... it was now totally uncool to ride a sting ray. My folks got me an orange Schwinn Varsity 10 speed for Christmas when I was in junior high school. I didn't ride it to school, but I put a lot of miles on it until I got my driver's license at 16. I still rode the Varsity in high school, because even though I could drive, I didn't have a car.


Here I am in 1994 with my new Bridgestone MB4. The Varsity still worked fine, but it weighed about 900 pounds.

In the last couple of years we've started riding a lot and I've put about 1000 miles on this bike. It may be 17 years old and some of the technology is outdated, but it's a great bike and I like it very much.

I've been eyeballing beach cruisers every time we go into our local bike shop, Wheel Away Cycle Center. I just thought they looked really cool. Pat has been bugging me to get one - either that or a new mountain bike. My standard response has been "I don't need that" or "I don't want to spend the money on that".

A recent trip to Lake Tahoe changed that answer for good. We were at Squaw Valley, where I took place in the dedication of a statue of Snowshoe Thompson. We spent Saturday night there and had time to kill on Sunday before we went home. We were checking out the shops in the Village and went into a place that rented bikes. Let me back up a bit - we had intended to bring our bikes, even bought a bike rack for my car, but got a late start on Saturday and decided to leave the bikes at home.

So there we were at Squaw Valley rentals and decided to rent a couple of beach cruisers. We rode on the bike path along the Truckee River to Tahoe City, had lunch outdoors with a view of Lake Tahoe and rode back. It was a fairly level path, about seven miles each way, it was beautiful and it was FUN!

I went back to work on Monday and Pat was off. We had a fish taco at one of our favorite places and then to Wheel Away to "check out" their cruisers. Yeah - you guessed it. I bought one and here it is:

An Electra Hawaii Custom. It has three speeds and coaster brakes. I've ordered a wicker basket for the front.

Steve at Wheel Away told us to come back in a couple of hours, as they always service the bikes before they go out the door. We went back that afternoon with the bike rack on the car. I threw my helmet it the car at the last minute. We were on our way to my mom's to pick up our dog, Lucy.

I decided to ride over to Mom's - only about a mile. It was so much fun. Here I was sitting upright and comfy, riding down the streets in my old neighborhood. So what if I'm 49 years old, I felt like the little girl in the black and white picture and it felt GREAT!