Have Some Fun!

Foothills, Alberta

My first bicycle arrived in Arcola on a freight train. The crated bike was off-loaded at the railway station and made its way across the street to the Co-op, where Dad and the Hardware Manager assembled it. Mom and Dad presented the bicycle to me for my 6th birthday.

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The bike was huge, but Mom and Dad assured me, “l would grow into it”.  When they propped me up on the seat there was a six-inch gap between my boots and the ground.  Dad removed the seat and wrapped a gunny sack around the crossbar. This lowered the bike’s profile just enough for my toes to touch the ground, but the grain sack didn’t provide much padding, (in an area where substantial cushioning is recommended).

Like so many things I have done in my life, very little forward planning went into my first flight on the C.C.M.  I took it to the top of a little knoll, pointed the bike downhill, lifted my toes off the ground, and forgot every instruction I had been given. 

The first few yards were a wobbly balancing act but, as the bike gathered speed it straightened out. I was soon experiencing the exhilarating sensation of speed, rolling under my own control!  That sensation lasted less than 15 seconds.  As the bicycle’s acceleration began to increase, forward momentum exceeded pedal rotation speed and I was careening down the hill completely out of control. 

The coaster-brake instructions Dad had given me were forgotten long before I hit the first rut in the road.  The tractor-tire pigeon-toe ruts twisted the front wheel to an angle perpendicular to the trajectory of the bicycle, and the ride ended abruptly, in a crumpled pile thirty yards from where it had started. 

The crossbar connected with my body exactly where you would expect a crossbar to connect, and the momentum propelled me over the handlebars.  Fortunately, my arm shielded my uncovered head from direct blunt force trauma, but gravel left a six-inch track from my elbow up my forearm, as I connected with the road.

I don’t remember much about what happened next.  I expect Mom and Dad arrived and applied an appropriate level of admonition and concern.  I remember feeling dazed and foolish, which could have been a consequence of either my recklessness, or my head contacting the ground, I am not sure which.  Probably both.

The bike was reparable, but my body took a little longer to mend.  The skid mark on my arm faded at about the same rate as my trepidation.  Within a week I was back on the bike, with greater success each time.

I eventually grew into the C.C.M.  The seat was reinstalled at some point, and I spent hundreds of hours cycling on the gravel roads of South Arcola in the coming years.

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Sixty years have passed, but not much has changed.

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After a 25-year bicycle intermission, Bear and I decided to get new bikes this week.  We live high in the foothills with four km of gravel road between us and the pavement. We are approaching our 70^th birthdays, so we opted for electric-assist bikes.

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We found the bikes we wanted on Wednesday and by Thursday afternoon we were ready to roll. 

Bear decided that she wasn’t comfortable tackling a steep decent on gravel for her first ride.  Having learned nothing since 1961, I opted to give it a go.

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Gravity works much the same now as it did in 1961.  I was well out of my comfort zone within seconds.

Fortunately, disk brakes are much more effective than the old coasters on the C.C.M.; I felt a satisfying drag as I applied them.  Unfortunately, the way tires act on gravel is no different now than it was six decades ago.  The front tire skidded on ball-bearing-sized rocks, and I felt an uneasy, queasy feeling down in the crossbar area.

I wrestled the e-bike back under control and kept it pointed down the road.

By this time, I was already a km from home, and I hadn’t touched the peddles yet, much less used the electric boost.  I decided to keep going, past the neighbour’s place and some foraging deer, all the way to the paved road.  I came to rest four km and 1000 vertical feet from home.

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It was time to find out how the e-bike works going uphill.  The salesperson had given Bear and I a quick rundown on how to operate the electronic features of the bike but, as with Dad’s instructions back on the farm in ‘61, not much had sunk in.

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The little display pad lit up and a whole bunch of unfamiliar gobbledygook presented itself.  I vaguely remembered the sales guy saying that the bars on the left were the power boost indicators, so I gave one of them a push and off we went.

With an electric assist, you need to be peddling to initiate the “assist” part. I was in a mechanical gear too high, but once I got the manual and electric parts coordinated, the bike started rolling very easily, uphill!  The thrill was almost as exhilarating as the ride on my 6^th birthday!

The serious uphill portion of the return trip was a way off, so I experimented with a few different settings.  As I was fumbling around with the controls, a pickup truck went by me doing 9-0 and I got my first auto/cyclist interactive experience. 

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My trip up the steep portions on the return trip wasn’t the walk-in-the-park I had expected.  I didn’t realize I wasn’t in the lowest mechanical gear so, despite help from the electric battery, my legs and lungs were burning by the time I reached the house. 

Bear had given up waiting for me; the triumphant return I had expected didn’t happen.

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As in 1961, this bicycle taught me some valuable lessons…

Don’t be in a hurry,

Listen to instructions,

Plan your route in advance,

Then, forget it all and…

…Have Some Fun!

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