2 wheel parent 20260329

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While Daysi and I spent the most time on HAHA, she wasn’t exclusively an adult toy. 

Our youngest daughter, Sofi, had graduated to riding her own bike –– barely. We did a few terrifying rides with her on her own wheels. There was one on the bike paths outside of Stowe where we pushed the limits of parental responsibility. She made it but was unsteady enough that I worried about the safety of other riders. Parental anxiety at an all time high, I watched her fall so far to the left that her knee was about to scrape the pavement. I stood up, ready to dismount and sift through the wreckage when she cranked up her peddling cadence and, by sheer centrifugal will power, managed to straighten the bicycle. 

Another divine intervention happened out on Route 2. We were doing one of those early spring rides before road crews began to repair winter damage. In yet another failure of parental judgment, I thought she understood the danger of potholes. Paroxysm of parental agony; I saw my child fly over her handlebars in perfect superman position, a flat out belly flop onto the pavement –– no tuck, no roll –– not the least inkling of self preservation. The bike followed her arc and bounced off of her back before falling off to the side of the road. I threw down my bike and leapt to collect the remains of my child. Broken jaw? What do you do about road rash on someone’s face? She started to stand even before I got to her, a bit dusty, but completely unscathed. Not even the elbows of her jacket were damaged. We dusted her off, and headed for the creemee stand. Whatever the karmic debt incurred for this miracle, I paid willingly. 

Needless to say, longer trips with our accident-prone eight-year-old were unlikely to be either wise or fun. Fortunately, the rear compartment of HAHA was remarkably flexible. With the seat completely lowered and the handlebars adjusted, Sofi could be comfortable back there. 

Unlike her more taciturn sister who had accompanied me on the trail-a-bike through the suburban roads of Stamford, Connecticut, the young Sofi was a raging extrovert. Unleashed on the back of HAHA, she was a non-stop stream of verbal activity. My participation was not optional. The declared No Talking Zones on especially steep pitches did little to dampen her enthusiasm. And unlike the trail-a-bike where I had only an approximate idea of how much pedaling was happening on the back, HAHA’s tight drivetrain told me precisely how little power was coming from my so-called stoker. 

None-the-less, she was an unflaggingly cheerful cycling companion who loved the woods and all of the creatures in them. On the many days when I was looking for both a killer workout and a large dose of optimism, we’d head out on the dirt roads together. 

An especially infamous ride came towards the end of our third summer in Vermont. Daysi and I were in the budding phase of our HAHA love affair. Ariel, while not an avid cyclist, was inherently strong. We decided to do a more adventurous family ride direct from our house out past Middlesex. This added about 10 miles and some 800 ft of elevation to the usual family distance. Most of that elevation was packed into the final 5 miles of the return trip. We worked our way up the gradually intensifying pull on Main Street that covered most of a mile, around the steep left hand corner and then continued the grind for another ½ mile along Town Hill Road. This was a significant accomplishment for Daysi riding solo. 

The happy babble from the stoker’s seat reminded me that I was decidedly not solo on this particular climb. Whatever minuscule quota of lung-sucking-quads-on-fire-No-Talking time I was allocated had apparently expired. On the steepest part of the corner I interrupted her. 

“Sofi” I gasped, “Pedal!” 

“Okay Daddy, here I go.” … “How’s that?” 

I felt a small surge. 

“That enough?” “Daddy!?” “Daddy!?” 

Clearing the corner I found enough breath to huff, “Keep peddling” 

“Okay!” “This is a big hill!” “Did you see the cardinal on the fence? It is so bright red.” “Daddy!?” 

It’s hard to imagine any 1.5 miles ever being longer. At the crest we got a break dropping down No Boyfriend Hill and climbing a short roller that was the last elevation before our driveway. My legs were shot. My lungs were shot. There was nothing in the tank. We zipped down a small grade, turned right on Gallison and rolled across the short distance down Wheeler Road. I dropped into my absolutely easiest gears to prepare for the steep gravel climb up our driveway. 

“Ready hijita,” I called back. 

“Sure!” inhale? “This has been a really fun ride.” 

We have begun the climb. 

“Go Mommy! Go!” she called out to Daysi just off to our right. 

I was scraping the bottom –every fiber of lungs and legs on fire. My arms started to hurt from the power of my tuck over the handlebars. 

“Daddy?!” “Daddy!?” 

Just keep that foot coming around. 

“DADDY!? Talk to me Daddy! Talk to me!” 

I could neither laugh nor cry. A single ragged gasp escaped, “PEDDLE!”. 

In front of the garage, I collapsed over the handlebars. 

“Yay, we made it!” I felt her dismount and come up to pat my arm. “You’re all sweaty!” 

Finally, I had enough oxygen to fuel the faintest trickle of laughter.

buy me a coffee

The heat was omnipresent but the full punch of the August sun only hit us through gaps in the canopy. The leaves above chattered in breezes that never reached us on the ground as nothing more than tepid puffs. Daysi shifted into the easiest gears and settled into the long spin up Bliss Road into East Montpelier. Most newbies are so infatuated with power that patience has no place in how they confront a route. The simple Newtonian logic of cycling gives no advantage to speed. No matter how rendered, it is the cyclist's job to cash in biological calories for the magnificent prize of putting a heavy thing just a little higher in the world. Potential energy rises. Physical energy fades. Psychic energy falters. The bigger bites of harder gears might look better in lycra, but they give no actual advantage. I marveled how easily she accepted these truths. Even more than with the hill, she was patient with herself, and not ashamed of her novitiate status. My wife has a gift for grasping things I have learned very slowly, if at all. 

I left the girls at the top of the hill and doubled back to cheer her on. I found her humming a tune through the scratchy labor of her breathing.  

“You go on with the girls,” she spit out in a quick gasp.  

“Its a family ride,” I reminded her.  

She kept spinning. The girls were ready to move by the time she reached the top of the hill.  I dropped my foot to pause with her.  I bit down on the valve of my water pack while she pulled out her water bottle. The mosquitos zeroed in on her as quickly as the black flies swarmed me in May, “Let’s go.” she called. The kids knew to wait for us at the next stop sign.  

We hadn’t reached this point through good luck or even just grace. We had dedicated many quiet evenings talking through how we wanted to be outdoors together and as a family. I had learned to let family expeditions stand alone with their own kind of magic. They met my nearly pathological need to get out. In exchange, she accepted that I was content going slower or doubling back. Out on the cross country ski trails or riding on dirt roads these were easy compromises but on pavement there was a bigger difference between our paces and doubling back was sometimes dangerous. All of this meant that our riding together, fell into a limited range. We were willing to work within those limits, but didn’t mind pushing against them too. 

***

At the end of our second summer in Vermont Daysi and I received the gift of a long weekend escape. On a prior trip to Montreal with the girls we had seen heavy tourist tandem bikes cruising the trails beside the river and had somehow decided that this experience would be a reasonable test of our marriage. By this time we had done enough family riding that we came equipped –– lycra, helmets and gloves. We intended to make a day of it. I had a loose route mapped out that would get us out of the downtown and into some of the less trafficked sections of the island. 

On a beautiful August day, we dropped into a bike rental stand on the edge of the touristy historic district, and emerged on a clunky cruiser whose gross tonnage probably exceeded my first car. The saddles were tourist-type cushy, and wider than I would like, but the gears moved smoothly and the brakes had enough grip. Riding with Dad I had been on the back of a tandem a few times, but this was my first experience as the captain. I had never felt the responsibility of having someone behind me or the challenge of getting such a long piece of metal through traffic, tight bike-trail corners, or pedestrian throngs. Daysi had never been on the back of tandem (AKA, the stoker), so I have reason to believe she was nervous too. 

My anxiety ticked up a notch as I peered into the thick crowd of meandering tourists who looked in every direction except where they were walking. I summoned whatever understanding I retained from riding behind Dad, checked the gearing to make sure it was loose enough to start, and remembered the challenge of coordinating the starting strokes. I waited for a promising gap in the crowd. “Ready?” I called out… “1-2-3” downstroke. Butts on seats. Wobble. Wobble. Don’t kill pedestrians! We are moving!? 

There were enough gaps in the crowd and enough well-defined bike lanes for us to advance without many complete stops. Keep the gears loose! When we slowed to a near stop I was surprised that the bike remained just as stable as my solo wheels. Even when we needed to drop a foot, the movement flowed easily. We paused. Waited for a gap. “Ready? 1-2-3”, downstroke. Wobble. Wobble. This was less terrifying than I had feared. 

Ten minutes of excessive caution and a few polite “Excuse me!” calls got us out of the thickest crowds. I kept a thumb on the bike bell to give us space and tightened the gears. Cadence emerged of its own accord. Stable and cruising, this seemed all too easy. Encouraged, we settled onto the trail that ran alongside the Saint Lawrence river and aimed for the western tip of the Island. As tourists we stopped frequently to catch the sights along the St. Lawrence, even more frequently to consult the maps and occasionally doubled back to correct my navigational errors. 

Both bike and pedestrian traffic thinned but we were rarely alone. We found a soft rhythm and a sense of ease diffused into the hours. The frequent pauses to work out navigation were part of our flow and the easy terrain gave us the chance to practice tandem starts with little risk. “Ready? 1-2-3” Downstroke. Wobble. Wobble. At least the wobbles now swept across smaller arcs, and lasted for only a few pedal strokes. 

Talking was easy. The distance between us was less than we had ever managed on our independent bikes. I had no worries about slowing down or catching up to have a conversation. I didn’t have to pull up beside, check to see if I was blocking someone behind or dodge oncoming cyclists. Though we were not pushing either of our physical limits, gentle fatigue lent the slightest tang of common enterprise to our progress. 

I am sure that the rest of our weekend was also lovely, but that ride was the unambiguous highlight. I don’t recall if we returned to evaluate the cost of a tandem, nor if we were raving about the experience at family gatherings, but that Christmas Dad and Leslie presented us with a slender envelope that held a fat surprise. We had an appointment to get measured for a tandem at our local store, Onion River, so that they could order the bike and get it set up before Spring.

*** 

Our first ride on the new bike fell on a bright, warm spring day. As was only appropriate, we had selected Route 2 into Middlesex as our route. The “Tandem thing” had evolved from a lark into a serious investment, and I was feeling the pressure as we mounted up in the shop parking lot. “Ready? 1-2-3” Downstroke. Butts on seats. Wobble. And we were out on the road. Stop sign. Keep the gears loose. “Ready? 1-2-3” Left turn. Next stop sign. “Ready? 1-2-3” We caught a green light at the edge of town, and the open road was ours. 

This was no tourist shop junker. We were on a bright blue, aluminum beauty, drop bars in front and 32 mm road tires paired with extra large disc rotors – designed to roll. We were also equipped with a clever shock-absorbing seat post that minimized the impact of bumps into the stoker’s cockpit. The rough spring pavement just outside of town demonstrated the brilliance of this feature. 

Clever engineering, however, was not enough to negate the trauma of raw spring pavement. Leaving town I heard two gasps of surprise and discomfort in quick succession. 

“I need some warning,” she said. 

“Yep. We are going to have to get off the seats for some of this crud.” I looked ahead at an especially forlorn piece of pavement where the shoulder has already started to slide down the berm. 

“Get ready. Get up.” I called back. 

In the act of standing, the reality of being clipped into a single drive train was moved from a conceptual thing to a question of ligaments and muscles.  Neither of us could move without the other’s permission, and one person decision to stop peddling locked the knees of the other. On this first attempt, I think we were just lucky to get away with it but I made note. We settled back on the seats and began to spin. We got up over the pedals again, just in time to make it through another rough patch.

This was too complicated for the variability of Spring pavement. The difference between an actual threat and normal jiggles was not always clear when we were among the patchwork of so many repairs and fresh winter damage. Sometimes, I could make out a threat only in the last seconds. Four words was too many. “Ow!” again. I began to experiment with warning calls. My third(?) variation was a short, clear call, “Butt Up!” That worked. More subtly, I also worked out how to freeze my legs in place without contradicting her efforts. We ended up in a stable platform, right foot forward, and knees flexed to let the impact flow through the muscles of our legs instead of the bones in our butts. This quick call and the unspoken entanglement of our legs fit easily into our rhythm. Every once in a while I was surprised by some asphalt feature that delivered more impact than I had anticipated, but even on this first day, failures were rare. 

When we reached the first of our two mild climbs, I dropped us through the gears to find one that fit. We knew when I found it. The grade increased. I slipped up one more gear in the rear cluster, hit the crest, and then geared down. “Butt up” I called out for the descent. With our asses in the air, and bumps consumed by the flex our legs, we could appreciate the stability of the bike. At the base, we lowered our butts back onto the saddles and began to spin. I felt around for the gear that gave the right level of resistance and we fell back into cadence. The fidelity of the non verbal communication was startling. Every shift in weight, perspective, or spirit flowed directly into my body. I was literally strapped to my wife. 

“How’s life back there?” 

“This is great!” I was cheered by her enthusiasm. 

I didn’t really want to turn back at Middlesex, but this was enough for our first test drive, and the three way intersection gave us plenty extra room to swing a u-turn through such a long wheel base.  

“Can you see if I am clear to turn?” I requested. 

I corrected for her lean to the left as she twisted to look over her shoulder and then swung us around. Already some of the conscious efforts and fears about sharing this single set of wheels with my wife had faded into the background and the ride itself was coming into focus. On the return, we were granted the first mild taste of what it might mean to take this creature on the flats. Over the years we’ve had many people declare emphatically that tandems are too slow. The only possible justification for this (incorrect) assertion can be found in the climbs where gravity is more of a master than wind resistance. Everywhere else, physics favors the tandem. The stoker is almost perfectly placed to hide from the consequences of increasing wind resistance. The extra power flows to both riders. We got our first taste of these equations as the familiar flats melted away. 

Approaching the creemee stand on the edge of town I initiated something that became a tradition for us. “Days,” I called back, “Let’s see what we can do on this thing.”

“Okay.” 

“From creemee stand to the stop light. You in?”

“Do I have a choice?” 

“Ha, of course” On a tandem it is easier to veto than vote. 

Passing the stand, I tightened a gear and poured every ounce of effort through my quads and into the downstroke. I felt Daysi’s power flow through my pedals and the machine surged forward. I cut another gear. And another. I didn’t need to check any device to know our cadence was now over 90 or that my power was barely sustainable. We had 1.5 miles from stand to stoplight –– plenty of time for the lactic fires to consume us. Within seconds there was enough air rushing past my ears that I could no longer hear her breathing. I didn’t need to. Here, at maximum capacity, I found a tight and exceedingly subtle call and response between the fibers within us. Whenever there was the least bit of doubt coming through her stroke my quads redoubled on their downstroke and the next revolution was restored to full power. When I started to fade into the pain, the exhortation of her force burst through the chain. My quads replied. 

Were I on my road bike this sprint would end in the single pedal stroke when I met the goal or the pain won, but the tandem unwound gently. Whoever let up first was really just asking a question. If the offer was accepted, the other person also dropped their power. We were so tightly bound, that even stopping required each to be aware of the other.  I caught my first insight into the constant call and response between bodies bound together. 

***

We were still in that stage of life where parental logistics could be complicated. Our weekly date nights required a babysitter and escaping during a weekend meant we had to find child care. “Chiquita, why don’t you guys go play at your friend’s house,” was a common suggestion to our daughters. My work schedule, however, granted us certain days when we could sneak out of the house during the week. Here the brilliant engineering of our rig was fully revealed. Beefy wheels, oversized discs, and that clever shock absorber in the stoker seat post meant that all of the dirt roads outside of our door were not just survivable but entirely pleasant riding.

There was something deliciously naughty about these mid-week rides. Escaping from our responsibilities, out, alone on nearly empty dirt roads –– moving through the dappled sunlight and rustling leaves –– dropping into the descents “Butt Up” and peeling through the gears on sudden steeps. No adults required. At times we chattered away and at others we got lost in the gentle sounds surrounding us; breeze, birds, cicadas, crickets and squirrels blended with the low rattle of turning chains. Who wanted to go back? Our afternoon quickies gradually became more strategic. We found ourselves planning the next day’s route after the kids were in bed. The opportunistic gaps in my work calendar were occasionally supplemented with hard blocks of time marked “unavailable”. 

The post ride glow, that pervasive sense of peace and well being, was now something that I shared with my partner. I could see it in the flush of her cheeks, and I felt it in the way she settled on the couch beside me. There was profound equality in the work that we did together. In the absolute physical measurement of force, I was undoubtedly stronger, but it was the very essence of the tandem that we could only go as far as our combined strength allowed. We gained power together not so that one could pedal harder than the other, but so that both could go further –– that we both might spend yet more time in that sacred, sweaty bubble. 

The logistics of life and work prevented us from getting out on many days, but there were also plenty when we were hoofing it to get home before the school bus arrived (or at least not long after). Like any good affair, we showed up suspiciously disheveled and slightly concerned about how we might smell in public places, invented excuses for why dinner might be late and showed up at teachers conferences a bit overly clean and Daysi’s hair suspiciously wet. No orgasms were involved (at least I can speak for myself.) but this was a deeply physical and intimate experience. It was our protected space –flagrantly personal and self absorbed right there in the middle of any given day. 

This lithe machine needed a name. It didn’t take long to work out the equation. On the bike we were both just a couple of Happy Asses. Happy Ass x 2. Politely abbreviated to HAHA. To further declare the boundaries of our sacred space, we denied any explanation of what HAHA might stand for. When our children asked, we said, “We’ll tell you when you are older.” As soon as we had done that, we knew that the explanation could not be whispered to anyone else without violating their trust. They would both be in their twenties before the truth was revealed. And so HAHA became the dirty little secret that we could flaunt right out in public –our tryst, secreted away on the grand climbs and bomber hills of shady dirt roads. 

Over the course of the years, I have been blessed to receive many material gifts. Some are a nexus of treasured memories. A few are among the handful of physical items I actually care about. HAHA is the only one that changed my life.

buy me a coffee

Constellations 

“Hey Nick, you remember the storm that caught us on the way into Stowe?” Grampa’s single glass of chardonnay was more than enough lubricant for the holiday dinner conversation to take this familiar turn. My dad grabbed his own glass and leaned back with a smile, “I sure do.” The storm had come down on them more than 30 years ago, and they had ridden through just as they had on so many other days. Rain, heat, wind, hills, bad drivers, worse pavement, grating gears, and rubbing brakes were the stuff of those days. They were the grit and grind that lingered in the background of so much green and fathomless blues, infinite skies and endless miles that trivialized all the most common sorts of sense, that made flesh forget humility, that urged forward, further –– always further. I had been with them on more than a few of those hard, brilliant days. That Dad had been Grampa’s ex-son-in-law for more than 25 years was a minor detail when measured against these memories. Dad’s third wife, her sister’s family, my younger brothers, and assorted family friends were all happy to jump into the conversation. This was an unlikely menagerie with complicated histories but we all cherished the simplicity of pushing two wheels through Vermont hills. 

Despite twelve years of marriage, my wife had not fully appreciated how completely my childhood was tangled in spokes and chains. Even I, at 35 years old, was rediscovering how deeply the bike spoke to me. We had moved to Montpelier less than a year before, and the dirt roads welcomed our young family into adventures just as I had predicted, but I was surprised by how the pavement called to me.   

When Leslie, Dad’s wife, spoke across the table to tell Grampa that they were planning to do the Onion River century ride, she glanced my way. My last hundred mile day had been with Dad, more than 20 years ago. We had ridden from our house in Connecticut to Grammy and Grampa’s house in Montpelier. We had pulled more than 100 miles on each of the first two days. I was 11. After that glance, the roads, the hours, the wheels rose inside me and I made no effort to separate the buzz of quiet excitement from the wine’s gentle warmth. The conversation wandered on to other places. 

***

My second glass of port tottered over the indecorous remains of apple pie and a flourless chocolate cake even denser than my own muddy thoughts. Kids had scattered. Dishes and adults remained. The conversation ploughed, raucous, through books, movies, and neighborhood gossip. We sparkled in the joy of our ever increasing cleverness. The candles dripped and guttered. Each of us, just a little more liquid, pooled across the table. 

“Are you going to do it?” The words cut through the debate about which were the best Westerns of all time. Leslie looked at me. In any other circumstance, or from any other mouth, that line would have been a nonsequitur, but I knew exactly what she was talking about, and she knew that I would know. I looked at my wife who was already sitting outside the conversation’s main current, “Les is suggesting I join them for the Onion River Century ride this summer.” 

“You want to?” That she phrased her words as a sincere question surprised me enough to take some edge off of the port. I felt myself worthy of at least a little snark or subtle condescension. Was she really surprised by this? 

“Yeah,” was all I could manage. In fact, this was one of those unadmitted desires that had secretly crawled around the back of my head for a couple of months. I had nursed it with the same relish, and only slightly less shame, than the great romantic crushes of adolescence. Leslie already knew this was the dirty little Playboy hidden in my emotional bath room. My wife was kind enough to play along with my charade of innocence. 

“We can talk about it,” she said, but the tender look of bemused endearment already told me everything I needed to know. 

*** 

At the end of April, I opened the map kept at my desk and put Montpelier in the center of the space. Craftsbury, Glover, Elmore, Lake Willoughby, Craftsbury Commons: these were the legends of holiday dinner conversations. The names passed among the plates and splashed out of wine glasses, trafficked as the Vikings must have traded tales about Freya, Floki and Odin –– awash in laughter, a shade of debauchery and ample respect. With a moment’s concentration I found each name on the map, but I found no memories of these places rattling around my own skull. At first this bothered me. How had I betrayed these family memories? I stared at the map and thought a bit more. As a child all I had to do was follow the wheel in front of me. I never looked at the maps. Geography was defined by heat, the grade, the quality of the pavement, width of the shoulder and miles to the next creemee stand. Names were only brief flashes of white on green beside the road or phrases flowing among the adults around me. I smiled. What had first looked like betrayal was revealed as opportunity.

I took stock of these known points and considered their relationships to each other. In my mind's eye, I laid concentric rings over the map with rough estimates 40 mi, 50 mi, 60 mi, 80+. The main arteries were obvious enough that I could toss each name into a loose mental file organized according to my training plan. I worked backward from the target date, figuring I needed two 80+ mile rides prior to the event and I wanted to put two 60-70 mile rides under my belt prior to those. These would each consume the better part of a Saturday or Sunday. Prior to that, I’d work up to 50-mile weekend rides in addition to my regular 25-mile loop four days a week. Given weekend complications or some extra time, I could fit a few 50 milers into the long summer evenings during the week. I look up and out the window. A rough plan coalesced in the back of my brain. 

When I returned to the map it took a moment for my eyes to refocus. It had changed. There were so many names I did not know: Northfield, Williamstown, Albany, Woodbury, Roxbury. Every time I blinked I saw more. The main arteries that connected them were thick dark lines. I leaned in closer to some of these strangers and traced my fingers across fainter grey veins. The concentric circles faded as I leaned into this more subtle web. Loops, eights, zigs and zags appeared and then melted back into the paper when I shifted concentration to the next dot. 

I spent a lot of time looking at the map over the course of that summer. I found many patterns to fill the spaces between those dots. Was this what the Greeks saw in the night sky? I traced each line into miles, burned it in hours, and etched it in sweat. Each one filtered into memory. Some were edited into story, and a few repeated until elevated into my personal pantheon. This is where that storm caught me. Here I saw the bear. To look at the map was now as much about recounting as planning. As the folds in the paper got thinner I could run my fingers across the warmth of the known world right alongside the tingle of lines as yet unknown to my legs. 

I also started to use MapQuest on my computer. Between meetings I could fall into route planning the way some people described getting lost on eBay. A left here would add another 3 miles and 500 ft of elevation, while turning right would take me over to that lake I haven’t seen in a while, but going straight could be fun too. Most routes were not saved, but they still filled the maps with many layers of someday. The few selected for today came out of the printer with clearer turn-by-turn instructions than the paper maps ever gave me. Each sheet was folded into a handy zip-lock and tucked into my jersey. 

I was surprised by how often the crisp printouts of new routes led me into places soaked with a sense of the familiar. Riding into Hardwick put me on the southern edge of the Northeast Kingdom. It was the first town I hit heading north on Route 14 out of Montpelier. As such, it would have been the gateway for most of my childhood journeys into The Kingdom. I have no memory of any one of those family rides and yet on a random day of exploration I found myself spinning on 10-year-old legs at the bottom of the hill that led into the town. A sharp turn to the left threw me into a short, steep incline around a corner to the right where the hill leveled out at the edge of town. Some 20 miles from Montpelier, this was now a chance to get my butt out of the saddle for a few strokes instead of the punishing grind that haunted my childhood. Just past the crest, on the right, there was a hillside cemetery that sloped down a steep grassy bank to the sidewalk –– a perfect rest spot. The memory of placing my sore, young cheeks on that grass between my parents was crystalline, but there was no way I could thread this image into any specific ride. On future rides, I made it a point to plant myself here, more to sit among the memories than for want of a rest stop. 

Such moments of searing clarity were rare. More often I found only the misty texture of deja vu. I had no idea which impressions were synthetic creations of the moment, and which had some basis in experience. A few seemed to touch something even more fundamental than simple memory. Sure, I had seen the sun cut those exact shadows across a field, but was it this field? I took this precise angle around just such a corner. Was it this corner? The pitch of a climb, the bank of the road, tap of the rain, weight of heat, bite of cold, or clarity of air were familiar companions even if the place itself was unknown. The more I rode the more it seemed that the experience of riding was uncoupling from specific places and times. The supposed fidelity of a moment to a memory became somewhat slippery and slightly lascivious. The sensation of Lake Elmore burned though the hill outside Glover. The squint into Route 15 sun wrinkled my eyes in the instant I turned off of North Street. The dark bank of clouds that found me two weeks ago in Cabot was just now rolling into Moretown. 

The longer a ride the more familiar it became. Fatigue, doubt, lactic burn, stiffness across the shoulders, thirst could all transcend the ephemeral coordinates of space and time. I found these things tucked away in hidden corners of my body –– deeper than memory. One day the trigger was the smell of fresh cut hay. Then it was the rays of light through a distant storm. A particular vibration through the handlebars. The clattering grind of a missed shift. A lupine’s last flower. Unbidden, the sensations flowed into each ride. Through. Between. Among. 

On one especially hot day, I added Elmore to the itinerary as a way to make a bigger loop out of my trip to Hardwick. I was not completely naive. I had memories of climbing up to Lake Elmore with my Dad on his inaugural tandem ride some 12 years earlier, but I underestimated both the heat and the miles that lay between Hardwick and Elmore. I came into the heart of that climb running on empty. Thinking about the 15 miles and big climbs that loomed beyond Elmore pulled me into that familiar death spiral –– I am already this tired, I’ll never be able to: make that climb, go that distance, deal with the headwind. There was always a long line of applicants waiting to jump into the doom loop. I needed to focus. Crawl into that mental space where pain is so pervasive that it slips into the background. I took inventory of water and snacks. Death was unlikely. Therefore, this was doable. I retreated into my body. Only enough awareness remained to track road conditions and traffic. Let the legs do what the legs gotta do. 

It was this exact instant –– cresting the hardest part of the Elmore climb –– that crashed into my brain 20 years later in the mountains west of Toluca, Mexico. The squiggly blue line on my phone suggested a long gradual coast off of the high pass but instead delivered an endless series of steep plunges into high-altitude gullies and equally sharp climbs out. I was, once again, in full survival mode with even worse pavement than Route 12, and with just as little shade as on my journey through the Sierra Nevada in ’84. Different geographies. Different decades. Same place. 

On the Vermont roads, a ride with the kids mingled with the last time my Dad and I came through, sat atop a training ride, a hot day, that big rainstorm, Daysi beside me; Fall, Summer, and Spring, back and forth, up and down; child, teen, adult, husband, father; in different bodies I repeated these same simple movements. Over and over and over again. So many hours. So many miles. Deposited through so many years. Isn’t this how the dinosaurs died: crushed under the collective weight of eons? Suffocated. Buried alive. Have I been riding so long as to squeeze all novelty from the world? 

Where I might have expected calcification, stultification, rigidity, obsession or boredom, I, instead, found liberation. There was no settling of the weight. Nothing congealed. In this great accumulation I found a gentle unravelling. I am written across the landscape. Past, present and future selves exchange that faint cyclist greeting on these narrow shoulders – the slightest raise off a hand is all that we require. Every new mile is an eclectic reunion of trusted companions. Each mile retraced is a nod towards those yet ridden. 

buy me a coffee

A cool and breezy day in the first weeks of summer –– I was on the flats outside Plainfield, five miles into the ride and only now beginning to feel stable on the narrow wheels of this road machine. Hands on the tops of the bars, I settled into cadence. Green beside. Blue above. Air whistled faintly across me –– a cool touch that held back the sun’s heat. At the base of a small rise I made a flip decision to stand instead of shifting to easier gears. The force of my weight over each pedal bit the pavement; a surprising surge of power. In three quick rotations I launched over the knoll. “Oooh hoo,” I chuckled to myself. Momentum spoke. I tightened the gears, dropped my butt back on the saddle, shifted hands to the drops, pointed toes and summoned the thighs. The bike responded. I upped the cadence to find that first slight lactic thigh-burn, dropped my shoulders and leaned into a deeper tuck. I eased up short of maximum effort and held my pace across the mile that separated me from Plainfield. Breath came hard, but the smile was easy. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. 

On the other side of Plainfield I found more open road, settled back into any easy cadence and reflected on how foolish I had been to think that I should give up road riding. For a moment, I stood back in the entrance of that shed in Pacifica, deep in shadow against the hillside on the back corner of our small lot. The aluminum sheeting was once white but now well camouflaged by dust and detritus from the young Redwood above it. The moving truck was due to arrive in three days, and the main rooms had been put far enough into boxes for me to know what remained to be done. It was time to crawl into all those forgotten closets and hidden corners to look for the surprises that derail moving timelines and budgets. 

I waved away cobwebs and let my eyes adjust to the shadows. Beyond the lawn mower and above assorted hand tools hung the remains of my Cannondale road bike. Despite the darkness and through the dust I could see the flaky umber of rusted chainrings and the curl of rotted tires. I dragged it out into the light and ran my work glove across the top tube. A chaotic mix of dings and scratches showed gray against the dull black paint. Even now the pattern was familiar. Despite the dust I still saw them shimmering under the film of sweat that fell over those long, hot climbs. Aluminum doesn’t rust, but there was nothing worth saving here. I set it by the trash bins, ready for collection. 

Preparing for this, our fourth, cross-country move I was overwhelmed by how much stuff a family of four could accumulate. Immediately after we got married, Daysi and I drove from Vermont to Portland, Oregon, with everything we owned in my hatchback. Three years later we drove back East in a 19-foot moving van towing our sedan. Six years after that, the moving van to San Francisco was company-sponsored and included vehicle transportation for both cars. It was getting harder and harder to move. The boxes were piled in corners on the floors of semi-empty rooms but I felt them in my chest. So much stuff! The least I could do was liberate us from one machine that hadn’t been ridden for more than a decade. 

The black Cannondale from that shed was the first bike I bought for myself, and the only one I ever built out. My friend Aaron was the brains of the Cannondale build project during our junior year of high school. I balanced the shiny, black frame on my index finger as I lifted it out of the box and passed it to him. His eyes were wide behind his glasses. “Wow!” he said as he grasped it. He then helped migrate the components from the old bike I had destroyed during the prior summer when I worked as a river guide in California. He explained how the adjustments worked for each component. 

Through that long, intense weekend I learned most of what I now know about bicycle maintenance and repair. There’s no risk I’ll put my local shop techs out of business, but the knowledge has served me well. More importantly, that weekend was the first time I realized that I had peers wise enough to be my teachers and mentors. Not long after we graduated from high school, I lost touch with Aaron. I didn’t know that he had fallen into severe schizophrenia until a friend called to invite me to his memorial service. He had taken his own life.

The Cannondale was my transportation for two more seasons of river guiding in California. It came with me to college and patiently waited for the rare occasion when I really needed to get out. It opened the passes of Colorado for my first experience bike camping and was under me when I finally learned the ecstasy of carving hairpin corners. In Portland it was my commuter vehicle for the assorted temp jobs I used to pay my share of our rent for our first apartment. What kind of asshole throws away something like that? 

For the rest of that moving afternoon I tried not to look out the window at the remains thrown against the trash bins on the curb. In the struggle between nostalgia and claustrophobia, claustrophobia won. I needed to lighten up, to grow up and let go of things no longer useful. Moving to Vermont was going to be my chance to spend even more time out on trails with my new mountain bike. A different mountain bike, Old Red, would be converted to use as my family bike. I planned to trade the studded tires for road slicks that I could use to ride with the kids on dirt roads and would also work for the occasional trip on pavement. When I did make the mistake of looking out the window, I reasoned that road riding was no longer a priority. Adapting Old Red was a more responsible use of family resources. 

Dad still has almost every bike he has ever owned. This includes several generations of road, mountain and gravel wheels along with a few oddballs. Even when well organized and hung from ceiling hooks, they occupy the better part of a barn basement. He has good taste. They are all beautiful machines that he keeps in good condition and loans out to visitors like me. What would make it into his moving van? 

Mom never acquired as many bikes and has none of them; not even the wheels that she used on her solo trip across the U.S. I fancy myself more like Mom. As I write this, I am almost a decade into that phase of my life I call “Two suitcases and a bike box.” Oh yeah, I am a bad-ass digital nomad who has lived in five cities and three countries over the last 10 years. When I go to visit my Dad I am careful to not make eye contact with the six bikes I have left in another section of his barn over the years. Instead, I opt for the sweet cyclocross unit he no longer rides and keeps tuned for my visits. 

Of course, it was Dad who observed the reality of my Vermont riding after we moved the family. My single-track aspirations had been shattered across multiple mishaps that ranged from minor to physical-therapy-required, and I was surprised by how much joy I found back on Vermont pavement. Old Red had logged longer rides and more miles than planned. 

We had one of our occasional, mid-week lunches in downtown Montpelier, and sat beside the large window of our favorite café with our view framed by towering snow piles on the sidewalk outside. The heavy snows at the end of March added extra urgency to talking about the upcoming season. Spring only begrudgingly wanders into Vermont when summoned by the collective desperation of its populace. Every shared cup of coffee, cash register conversation, or grocery aisle encounter becomes its own dark rite of spring –– pallid faces hunched forward chant the latest forecasts in unison. We leave seed catalogues open beside the toilets, stage bags of bulbs on coffee tables, and scatter limp seedlings among the sunniest window sills as if they might prevent the next blizzard. 

Dad paused with his spoon above the soup, “You should take the Serrotta,” he said. I knew Dad’s penchant for sexy rides, and I knew the exact machine he was referring to. It was a hand-crafted, steel-frame beauty –– the kind of graceful engineering that traditionalists point to when arguing against the harshness of aluminum or fragility of carbon. Painted in a deep purple with yellow lettering and matching bar tape, it advertised a degree of cycling competence that I could never live up to. 

“You’re not using it at all?” I was looking for an out. 

“Not since I got the Orbea.” He returned to his soup. There was excessive patience in the gesture. This was an ambush.

“Won’t one of the boys want it?” I inquired about my younger half-brothers, who were all strong riders. 

“Bah,” he scoffed, “They think road riding is for pussies.” 

I felt the claustrophobia. Old Red was doing just fine on the roads. 

Dad seemed to have finished with his soup and was now looking at me. I reached for my sandwich and ran through the list of first year Vermont sporting expenses: ski equipment for Daysi, downhill and cross-country ski rentals for the girls, winter clothing, ski tickets. And we knew that Sofi was now ready for her own bike. “Thanks Dad, but I don’t even have road shoes anymore.”  

He was ready for that one. “Why don’t we stop by the shop after lunch? I think you have a birthday in a couple of weeks. Right?” 

The Serrotta was more flash than I felt comfortable with. He knew it, and he knew I had burned through my short list of excuses. He also knew I was likely to put his old wheels to good use. 

And as I moved across the rollers past Plainfield, I made no effort to suppress my grin. Light, tight, precise –– the movement of this machine was already wired directly into my brain. I had seen the sleek carbon-fiber beauty, all orange and black, that now held the place of honor in his barn, but I couldn’t imagine anything better than this steel-tubed classic. Then I took the sharp left in Marshfield.

I assessed the angle of the rise ahead, wrapped my hands around the brake mounts and started to shift. Click. Click –– the reassuring rattle of a chain sliding through derailleurs. I paused for two pedal strokes to let the chain settle. Click. Click. Pause. Click; the lever was stuck. I tried again. And again. Derailleur problems already? Dad was meticulous about the maintenance of his rides. I had started the steep part of the climb but still risked a glance back through my right armpit to check on the rear cluster. Fuck! Nothing wrong at all. The shifters had done their job. Now it was my turn. I rose out of the saddle, focused my eyes 8 feet in front of the bike and reached deep. So this was how it was going to be!

New Bike Syndrome is a common affliction among riders, especially those who, in Grampa’s parlance, “have more money than sense.” Dad had reached that point in life when there ought not be shame indulging in some fine new wheels, though I don’t recall him ever inviting Grampa out to the barn. The Marshfield hill demonstrated that the Serrotta was a racer’s bike. Big chain rings up front and a tiny cluster in back created a drive train meant for speed –– and the arrogance of young legs. I now saw his sexy new carbon-fiber, Orbea in a different light––beneath the glitter, I am sure he had a more forgiving drive train. I had spent the last 10 years on Old Red with three chain rings on the front and six plates in the back. It was built for rough trails and steep climbs. Was there yet enough arrogance in my quads to push the Serrotta through the Vermont hills? 

I took a few breaks on that first trip over the ridge into Calais, but even on the dirt roads I found pleasure in how the Serrotta handled a climb. Every bit of strength went directly into power. I enjoyed the challenge of finding traction through the corners where gravel accumulated and washboard formed. Back on Route 14, I rose out of the saddle for the biggest descent of the ride. Long beyond the max velocity of Old Red, I kept pouring power into the rear wheel. I tucked low over the yellow handle bars, tightened the gears and upped the cadence until all resistance vanished. At these speeds I wasn’t shy about taking my section out of the middle of a lane. Body and frame fused into a single unit –– I didn’t slow anyone down. 

To think that I was ready to turn the page on that chapter of my riding life. Really!? I give thanks to those who know me better than I know myself, and to those willing to accumulate baggage I am unwilling to bear. Is it wrong to wonder when Dad’s next purchase might push that Orbea into my garage?

About New Bike Syndrome

It is a well established fact that a new bike will cure all afflictions, especially useful in the treatment of ague, melancholy, bad humours of the blood and troubled relationships. The treatment is a bit more expensive than the venerable practice of bloodletting but with less mess and similar efficacy.

buy me a coffee

When I was a child, my family did a lot of riding. My grandfather led us on extended rides through the Vermont countryside, I rode weekly with one or both of my parents, and we did several multi-day trips. In the wake of my parent’s divorce when I was 12, our riding lives spun in separate directions. Grampa continued to log 3000 mile summers, Mom eventually soloed across the U.S, while cycling faded in and out of my life. 

By January of 1999 we had not ridden together in more than 15 years. Grandpa, now 83, was still riding across the Vermont hills, but Mom had settled on the coast of Maryland where the riding was so flat and boring that she had taken up roller blading. My wife and I were about to celebrate our eighth anniversary. She was not (yet) a rider. I was about to turn 31, our second daughter was 6 months old, and our first had just turned six. Getting the whole family together was a special event reserved for the holidays, but Mom had the idea to push for something more. She learned that the legendary Blue Ridge Parkway was only a few hours drive from her house. She hatched a plan to do a three-day ride with me and Grampa. I suggested that we include Ariel, my oldest daughter. The idea was not as abusive as it sounds. 

After a hiatus of several years, riding was returning to my life. As my wife and I worked out the rhythms of parenthood I staked out the early morning as my selfish time. If I could sneak out of the house without waking anyone up, I was free to go. As happens to many riders, I soon learned the other benefits of those early mornings: almost no traffic, cool temperatures, and no sun screen needed. On the days when I got out, I arrived at the office with my skin tingling and a head so full of beauty and bird song that it was hard to see the beige fabric of my cubicle.

Private indulgence, however, can only live on the margins of a combined enterprise like marriage. If I wanted to ride more, I had to find a way to include, at least, our oldest daughter. I settled on a trail-a-bike as the best option but still had a number of issues to work through:

Absurd parental anxiety: My child falls asleep and falls into traffic. 

Reasonable concern: She does something to throw off my balance and we would both end up in traffic. “No wiggling!” was a frequent command, and sometimes “Steady” as we went down a hill. I learned to grab the top tube between my knees when I took my butt off the seat for descents. 

Most likely outcome: She gets bored and hates cycling for the rest of her life. Ariel was a relatively quiet child but 5-year-olds are pretty chatty by nature. We babbled on about whatever came to mind, and stopped regularly to look at ducks, flowers, or strange tree trunks. My time on the back of Dad’s tandem meant that I understood the need to let her know about turns and potholes. 

By the time Mom proposed the trip, Ariel and I had worked out a reasonable partnership. I talked more than I was used to and stopped more frequently, but I had confidence in her balance and sometimes even felt her contribution to the power equation. “Go little leggies,” was another regular command.  I would get a small power bump and a whole lot of wiggling. I wasn’t certain that the young Ariel was ready to spend all day on a bicycle, but I didn’t have any evidence to the contrary either. The plan was for three days of riding in the style of our old family trips––we would cycle light and take turns shuttling the car. This approach gave us a back up plan in case she burned out, and I sometimes had on our family adventures. 

Cyclists know that the “scenic” label on a highway carries a price paid in elevation. The 50+ miles we planned to cover on the first day included getting up on to the ridge so we assumed, correctly, that there would be a lot of climbing, but we had planned the miles as an all-day project. Of the four of us, Grampa was, predictably, the best prepared. He had been out on those Vermont roads every dry day he could find. While Mom was active, there was no climb of any note within 100 miles of her, and I was in a phase of life where I measured movement time in minutes not days. 

Our first big surprise was the abundance and variety of the butterflies. They gathered in scintillating clouds, and in places they littered the road, killed or injured by cars. We used Ariel’s plastic colored pencil box to store the most interesting specimens in my bike bag and stopped anytime we saw something new. This was much appreciated entertainment for the 6 year-old child spinning away behind me. Unfortunately, she missed the black bear cubs and mom that crossed the road some 300 feet in front of us. I was happy to stop and give mamma bear some time to move deeper into the woods. 

Our second surprise was to find expansive views in such dense forests. It was only the combination of wide shoulders and elevation that let us look out over the rolling hardwood forests. The trade off was constant exposure to the sun. Fortunately, Mom had the good sense to get us on the road before the summer heat arrived and we knew to keep our sunscreen refreshed.

The “scenic” designation was appropriate foreshadowing. The climbs were unrelenting grinds but rarely steep. Grampa was often beside us as we crawled forward. “How are you doing back there young lady?” he boomed at Ariel. 

“Great!” her voice, high and thin, was full of the boundless enthusiasm that only a child can capture. I knew that same energy could also collapse inward if boredom or fatigue penetrated too deeply. I tried to hold the little leggies in reserve. 

In the distance, above us, we would see one of the fire towers. “Look at that Tad. You don’t suppose we’re going up there do you?” Grampa was only slightly less enthusiastic than the child behind me. 

Inevitably, it was exactly where we were going. We’d get there, coast down a dip in the ridge and head on towards the next one. 

Sometimes the road became steep enough for me to declare a No Talking Zone. It was part of the protocol I had worked out with, or rather imposed on, Ariel. It is the nature of a six-year-old to expect instant response from a parent and it is the right of a parent to seek refuge in silence when each breath is a full body experience and said parent is convinced that the constant stream of chatter behind him is clear evidence that the little shit isn’t pedaling hard enough. I had learned that it was best to announce a moratorium on voices. 

Grandpa, however, was not intimidated by my repressive policies. He was especially fond of monitoring his beloved odometer and calling out our speed on the climbs. “Six miles an hour,” he’d announce triumphantly as I gasped “Go little leggies!”. A few minutes later “Four miles per hour,” and then “Five,” as the grade eased up a touch. There was a mischievous sparkle in his voice as he broadcast each indicator of how hard we were struggling. The announcements were usually enough for Mom to chime in “Really Daddy. Not helpful.” He would have laughed if we weren’t already sucking wind.

And on we went through the day. Slow and steady, we progressed through profound beauty and deep peace. All pleasant bike memories seem to come bundled with the sensation of having the roads to ourselves, though I know this couldn’t have been the case. The three adults were all experienced enough to know what the day was going to be. While neither Mom nor I were in the ideal condition for this kind of ride, we had enough strength and enough mental discipline that neither pain nor frustration clouded the day. For Ariel’s part, if she got bored, she kept it to herself. Somehow the little leggies continued to make their contribution. Somewhere around mile 25, Mom turned back to get the car. Grampa, Ariel and I continued on. 

The tunnel caught us towards the beginning of yet another climb. It was short enough for me to see through but still long enough to put us in twilight. Almost a decade earlier I had spent a summer in Grand Junction and regularly rode through the tunnel on the road into The National Monument. I had been shocked by how the darkness threw me off balance. It took me weeks to adjust. As we approached the tunnel, those lessons from The Monument flooded into my limbic system. I steadied my breathing, kept my eyes on the far end, accelerated my cadence and called back, “Steady hijita”. We made it through with only a wobble. “Woo Hoo!” I thought. 

Behind me, I heard Grampa call out as he fell. I dropped the bike at the edge of the road. “Wait here”, I shouted at Ariel, and ran back into the tunnel. At 6’ 4”, Grampa had a long way to go down. He managed to break the momentum of the fall by catching part of the tunnel wall. He escaped with only a scrape on his elbow. I got his bike out of the road and helped him to get up. On the other side of the tunnel we regrouped. As is the wont of every recovering cyclist, he insisted that he was okay. The evidence suggested he was right, but he was also spooked and the fatigue of the day came down hard. 

I don’t remember the details of where Mom met us with the car but it was somewhere close to this point. With roughly 35 miles behind us, most of it up, we decided it was best to let Grampa and Ariel call it a day. They drove ahead to meet us at the lodge. Mom and I had another 15-20 miles to grind out, but with just the two of us we were able to pick up the pace a little bit. 

Only in writing this have I come to realize that this was the first time I had ridden with her in almost 20 years. The last time I had been the child, and now I was, a parent trying to do a reasonable impression of an adult. That I needed to work through five drafts before remembering speaks to the magic of riding. Between us we had racked up a couple of marriages, assorted flavors of recovery, 15 relocations, and a couple of careers. On the bikes, that was all just background––some other color beyond the dappled light through trees and deeper music behind the exuberant birds and rustling leaves. If we talked at all, and I am not sure that we did, it was about hills, gears, sore hands, aching asses, Grampa, Ariel, and butterflies. 

This section of the road was deeper. The shoulders were smaller and the trees closer. The woods on those ridges were just a touch denser and even more lush than our Vermont forests. The trees were a bit bigger, more mature, and just a little more imposing. Perhaps it was just a trick of the lengthening afternoon light. Still the dense, deciduous abundance was familiar and comforting. The last time we had ridden together it had almost certainly been on this kind of sinuous, shady road. 

We limped into the lodge spent but not to the point of complete exhaustion. We both knew that tomorrow would be a painful start. 

The showers were hot, sheets clean, beds firm, and the food would have been unremarkable if not for the spice of that unique, post-ride hunger. As our meal wound to a close, Grampa got quieter. He curled forward, head down, right elbow on the table, and hand on the top of his head. Mom was the first to react, “What is it Daddy?” He didn’t look up. With a surprisingly quiet voice he told us that he was giving up cycling. His shoulders shook. His grief embraced us all. We struggled to find a few words of comfort but mostly we sat in silence. Witnesses – each wrapped in our own profound loss. Ariel felt the gravity of the moment and cried along with us. 

His fear ran deeper than the spook of the day. He had been feeling unsteady on the bike for quite some time. I had noticed that for each of our many breaks during the day, he chose his stopping places carefully and spent time setting up the angle of this bike to get started, but the observation had remained an odd detail I hadn’t bothered to ask about. The lack of balance, not strength, pushed him to quite 

I heard little else that night over the recriminations raging in my head. All I had to do was stop! – get off the bike and walk all of us through. Grampa had never cycled through a tunnel before. He had no idea how disorienting the darkness could be. Without any other experience for comparison he attributed the fall entirely to his own balance and old age. Had I just stopped him there, he may well have ridden for another year or two. Of my short list of regrets in life this one sits awfully close to the top. 

In part, our silence that hard night was driven by the hope that his fear was a passing shadow. I looked forward to hearing that he had decided to try one more time – that the lure of Route 2 into Middlesex would prove to be more than he could resist. It was not to be. He donated his bike to the Montpelier share-a-bike program –– a gesture consistent with his faith in community and desire to inspire others. Only now it occurs to me that he did this precisely because the roads continued to call. Better to make a clean break. Better to remove any shred of decision or trace of will. Better not to confront the pain of the loss every time he walked into the garage. Though all the community bikes were painted the same shade of mauve, the massive 42” frame was distinctive. We saw it around town for a couple of years before it finally disappeared. 

Since the first instant I committed to this memoir project I have dreaded writing about this trip. At the same time, that ride is among my most treasured memories. Four generations together on a glorious early summer day, not out for some loop around the neighborhood, but logging serious miles on the Blue Ridge Highway. What greater promise could I possibly imagine?

For those who might be wondering about this towering man, or those who might wish for easy narratives, know that this was far from the end. A few years later, our small family would settle in Montpelier. It was one of the rites of Spring that Grampa and I would borrow my Dad’s manure trailer and make a run to the dairy farm of a friend to get manure for our gardens. Every year, his already large garden miraculously grew by just a few more inches. (“Don’t tell your grandmother. It’s just one more row”). In the depths of winter Ariel, then 14 years-old would emerge from high school to find her great grandparents slipping on their cross country skis for a loop around the track maintained for the ski team.

buy me a coffee

It was late afternoon on an average sort of summer day. Even before we hit the small knoll into Plainfield I could tell something was off. It’s hard to hide on a tandem. Today she was unusually quiet. Equally telling: there was a slight lag in her upstroke and a reluctance to catch the higher cadences I offered. By the time we attacked the knoll I had resolved to ask what’s going on, but I waited until we cleared the short hill on the other side of town. Past that climb we had a few miles of gentle rollers. 

After breathing stabilized and as I tightened the gears, I called back, “What’re you thinking about back there?” 

There was usually a pause. I didn’t mind waiting. My eyes were on the road. Green hills rose above and fields sparkled in the river valley on either side of us. 

 “I am worried about Ariel.” 

Our children were a frequent topic when we were in HAHA time. Ariel, our oldest daughter, was into the first phases of adolescence and confronting all of the related risks and pressures. The influences of one friend in particular worried us. While Daysi and I found common ground in the fears we shared, our instincts about how to help ran in opposite directions. My wife usually wanted to clamp down while I was inclined to step back and open up. The more worried we were, the more tightly we held onto our preferences. 

She talked through a recent incident. I asked some questions. We were already accustomed to the deep privacy of our rides. All that we needed was that specific glance at the dinner table for a subject to be taken out of circulation and hung beside the helmets and gloves. By the time I broached the subject we were a mere 25 minutes into a 2 hour ride. There was nothing but sweat and heavy breathing on the agenda for the next 90 minutes. Ariel was not standing behind us waiting for an answer about a sleep over. Her little sister wasn’t lingering in the doorway. I didn’t need to get my point across so that I could get back to a business call or out to the garden, or, or, or –– I wasn’t going anywhere that took me more than 24 inches from my wife. 

This day I asked a couple of more questions. In part, I was stalling. We were about to turn onto the biggest climb of the ride. By habit, we stopped at the flower garden just after the turn but before the hill. The stop itself required a change in topic. I spoke up to confirm that we would be stopping, and that I would loosen up the gears. The garden had a variety of lily that wasn't doing well at our place and they were mixed with columbines in a combination we had never considered. The next 40 minutes were completely consumed in the exertion of the climb, and for 15 minutes after that only whistling wind filled our ears. 

By the time we hit the next section of flats all of my “Yeah, but…” responses had burned away. I had spent the last hour sitting with the fears I hold. They had been ground through 3 miles of dirt road climbing, dragged alongside the pristine pond where we catch a quick break, brought over the unimpressive crest of the ridge and buried beneath the hunt for potholes and rocks that is part of any descent. In every instant of that hour my wife is present. I feel her in my quads. I hear the labor of her breathing. Of course, we talked across that hour but it was in the clipped transactions of effort and beauty. “Rough spot, up here,” I huffed. “Look at the heron,” she said. “Water lilies are going by,” I noted. “Lots of cars at the store today,” she observed.

Maybe enough had been said about our daughter’s situation for this day. Perhaps it was enough for Daysi to share what she had seen and explain what it meant to her. There was no lag in her cadence. Her silences now felt more a part of the ride instead of apart from it. Let this thing be. My fear was a shade of darkness that has a hard time resisting the heat, salt, and fluffy clouds of a summer afternoon. Like so much of what was going on in our lives, the bigger issue ran deeper than any one event. With a bit of reflection it was harder to see the urgency and easier to see the deeper pattern of our daughter’s growth. 

I chose to speak. Of course, I had some lingering suggestions about what we should do but those mattered less than the emotion behind them. My deeper anxiety was that the world would try to break my child before she was equipped to defend herself and the realization that this was already happening in ways that I couldn’t even see much less understand. I was pinned in the hope that she would figure out how to carve her path through it all, and the absolute certainty that neither Daysi nor I could save her from this struggle. The best we could do was to offer help, and the best help we could come up with was some mix of guardrails and the open road. 

We had two more significant hills still on the ride, and one delicious paved descent where we tucked into all the velocity gravity could give us. In each we gave our voices over to the ride –– oxygen relinquished to lungs and legs. We fought: gravity, pain, doubt. If only for this instant, in this tiny, arbitrary, and self-inflicted trial we triumphed –– together. 

We ended the ride with no clearer action plan than we had started. HAHA time had a funny way of eroding action plans, and yet the best options were always a bit clearer. Understanding was written across the landscape. We had just spent two hours in sync. Foot to foot. Thigh to thigh. We both said our piece. The details would work themselves out later. 

buy me a coffee

I am here

to celebrate the gifts that cycling has given me. 

While I have received plenty of feedback that I am ‘good with people’, it flows more from fear than grace. Tightly wound and finely tuned to a group’s expectations, I perform accordingly. I am among the awkward majority never fully comfortable in my own body. Fat kid, chubby guy for whom clothes never seem cut quite right. These are costumes donned for the benefit of others – that I may cause as small a ripple as possible. They are wrappings that occlude, but never bury, the shame of being unfit for manhood. 

People are surprised to come across me in the places I most like to go. Perhaps that is not fair. More likely, it is I who am surprised by what I have done. No matter what flavor of bad-assery I enjoy, I am uneasy when branded with the mark of competence. I prefer surprise. It has made me queasy, in the later years of my middle age to confess the title of “Athlete”. Even within the chambers of my own head, it vibrates with the plaintive bravado of a self-help chant. It is hubris run amuck. I become Usurper – Napoleon placing the crown upon his head. 

It is sweat that has saved me from imploding into my own vast introspection. I am an intermediate practitioner of endurance sports – enough to do things that less than 1% of the world has ever done, insufficient to rank among them. Their company is enough. Dusty, muddy, wet, hot, cold – Out, exposed, three dimensional, and, with shocking frequency, in the company of others, I am compelled to bear witness to the gritty beauty of the outdoors. 

Movement is my secret handshake with the world – proof that I belong in it. It binds to the landscape, forges profound connections with people, and continually reshapes my relationship with myself. Cycling, in particular, has evolved to become more than an activity. I have come to embrace it as an additional set of senses – every bit as rich as smell or taste. Decidedly tactile, intimate, and sensuous, it has become as much an organ as my skin will ever be. 

buy me a coffee

Children understand that they are the lost princess, that the aliens will come back for them, and that their magic will be revealed on some dark and stormy night. I am no more willing to relinquish these dreams than the next guy – the simmering of potential just beyond my grasp is a fact of my life. It would be convenient for me to blame the impossibility of fully realizing myself on the ignorance of the rest of the world. Cycling taught me otherwise. 

What an incredible gift I had been given – to do what I should not have been able to do. Back to back century rides at 11 years old – extraordinary. Learning to think of 25 miles as a casual outing for a 10 year old! There were no prizes, no medals nor Recognition. It was just done –a bit unexpectedly, perhaps, and not without effort, but we were not Hillary aiming for Everest. None of us had any pretention of elite athleticism. This was the normal state of affairs. Everyone around me did these things, not because it made them stand out or above, but rather for the joy of doing. What’s more, the simplicity of this common enterprise became the foundation of our union. The true gift was to behold the ordinariness of these extraordinary things. 

I came into adolescence knowing that super powers exist. It is wrong to expect that others will understand them, and unwise to name them. In doing so they become mere powers. Magic and joy fade as they become just another cog in the engines of status that grind us against one another. Better to whisper. Better to write the secret letter in invisible ink. Better to mumble the sacred prayer under your breath…and find the surprise under your pillow in the morning. 

I live with the enduring fear that once I tell someone about Narnia, I will no longer be able to find the door. 

buy me a coffee

Childhood vacations are their own mythical place in my mind. With a few exceptions they blur together. Generally they revolved around Vermont or camping on Martha’s Vineyard. Mostly they were with my Mom’s family and, invariably, they involved cycling. I usually spent two summer weeks in Montpelier with my grandparents and even those bleed into the time we spent there as a family. 

Vermont summers are short. My grandparents made the most of them. Grandpa enjoyed his job as a paper salesman–driving around the state peddling paper to local shops and printers. I believe he was damn good at it. His embrace of the world was warm and gregarious. His curiosity ran deep. He was just as likely to drift into the economics of a dairy operation as he was to inquire about someone’s printing business. He engaged easily, listened well, and people responded in kind. No surprise; his gift rolled with him. Every town had a community store and most had a creemee stand. Grandpa knew all of them, and they all knew him. Any time some enterprising soul threw up another creemee stand or started selling vegetables on the side of the road Grampa was sure to be among their first customers and often among their last. There was no sin to be found in a two-creemee ride even if Grammy didn’t approve. 

Grammy and Grampa were especially fond of traveling out of Montpelier on Route 2 out to Middlesex. The road cut through a broad river valley whose vistas distracted from the nearby interstate. Outside of Sunday rides with my Dad, this stretch of pavement gave me my first cycling forays into the wider world. From Middlesex there was the broad-shoulder of the scenic highway out to Moretown and from there to Waitsfield the surfaces and shoulders were mostly good. These were their regular family routes stacked in ascending distance and difficulty. If we felt even more ambitious, we could loop over “a good grade” (Grampa speak for a long climb) into Waterbury and drop through town back onto Route 2 for the return to Montpelier.

We had two other familiar options when cycling out of town. Heading from Montpelier out to Stowe was a special trip where Route 12 was either the way back or the route out. Either option was a 40 mile commitment. Route 14, the other pave option, pointed us off into The Northeast Kingdom –– a land of great adventure where we were guaranteed a lot of “good grades”.

At times, it was too much. I recall days dreading how I would bake in the afternoon sun or how the driving headwinds blasted through the river valleys. I would develop sudden stomach aches at the thought of some rides. At one point there was a conversation with my Mom about how my Dad really wanted to ride with me and how my headache would go away once we were moving. I didn’t always get out the door, but apparently I went often enough. 

Since Grampa spent his life driving around the state he knew it well, but not all of it. Vermont remains a rural state and it was even more so back then. Large chunks of it had no printing presses or stationary stores, but they most certainly had maps, and with maps come schemes. We had a system where there was usually a sag wagon and a picnic. Grandpa chose some new section of map and we all set out together. My Mom and Grammy swapped riding and driving. On the times that I was with the group, I would ride what I could and then get in the car. There was never room for the five of us in Grampa’s Saab, so someone was going the distance. 

While maps are built out an orderly set of colors, lines and symbols, the roads themselves were quirky and given to sudden shifts in personality. The rare bits of smooth Vermont pavement gave way to all manners of crotch abuse even beyond the typical pavement patches. The crevasse: shoulders sometimes slid off into the neighboring drainage to create long crevices just wide enough to swallow a wheel. The ball busters: the raised or cratered seam that pounded hands and privates. They typically showed in the gaps between concrete slabs. Ten to 12 feet was just far enough for a few good pedal strokes and close enough that it was impossible to get a butt off the seat in time. Patchwork: pavement, bit of dirt, back to pavement, back to dirt and the potholes that form at each of those transitions. And, the special torture of a freshly oiled road covered in sharp gravel. The maps told us nothing about these vagueries. 

We were always surprised and often dismayed at how much elevation could hide in one small section of wrinkled paper. I recall the dreadful anticipation of the mountain that loomed ahead and the route that veered off to the side, a sweet gray ribbon laid across the sweeping valley which turned out not to be our destiny and the turn we really wished we weren’t taking. Grampa always had something new in mind. “Try turning here’, we’d hear. And so we discovered, “That was a bitch of a climb,” or we might get suckered by the infamous “It’s all downhill from here.”

Martha’s Vineyard was especially hallowed ground. Even before it became the mysterious gateway through which cycling entered into their lives, summer camping on The Vineyard was a tradition. Grammy and Grampa, of course, knew the campground owners well, their children, and eventually their grandchildren. While they took their car over on the ferry, we would typically cross with just our bicycles and meet them at the campground for a few days out of their extended stay. My parents made it a point of pride to catch the first ferry of the day. I had no access to the adult logic that drove this decision, but I did get a kick out of sleeping in the car, and the magic of rolling our small bikes onto such a big boat in the cool morning air. There was a certain flavor of cozy that came from knowing that everything we needed was rolling right along with us. Bikes were how we moved around the island. Beach, breakfast, lunch, and back again. Sometimes there was a car to carry the picnic, sometimes not. When we did special dinners in town, we crammed our tired, baked bodies into their sedan. And sometimes my aunt, who was decidedly allergic to cycling, would bring her car. 

As a family unit, we also made it out to Block Island a couple of times with just our bikes. We ventured out in the blustery shoulder seasons when the island was quiet and the weather cool. I have no memories of sun, but neither serious rain. Gray clouds raced on stiff breezes. A hard gale only coaxed the faintest tremble at the very edges of the thick scrub and stiff grasses on the bluffs above a moody sea. Tip to toe, the island could be traversed in less than an hour without much shifting required (depending on the mercy of the winds). It was a place of shorts, and long sleeves with us tucked behind dunes or in the lee of a porch with our books. Heading into town for breakfast was not so much a physical activity as an immersion into the rich sea air –– a brief conversation with a chatty breeze that made the donut just a bit tastier. 

I was never alone on those trips, but even when in the proximity of others cycling is a distinctly private journey. Each person is alone with different struggles, different pain points and different head space. Among the family there was no talk of drafting. Sometimes the person in front would blink out of sight over the top of a climb, and it was usually unclear how far back the next person might be. Despite these hard facts there was a special warmth in knowing that I was rolling with my pack. At some level we were Tribe rolling across the savannah. I might not see them in the bush, but I knew they were out there. Without doubt, most of the miles I have ridden since have been solo, and yet I never shed that sense of presence when I am on a bike. There is always someone ahead, someone behind. Someone in my head. My tribe rolls with me.

buy me a coffee

Somewhere in those Ohio days, it was determined that I had outgrown my first ten speed. The next up was a blue Puch–pronounced, by us at least, as “poosh”. I remember I could barely reach the pedals. No doubt, parental wisdom dictated that they acquire something large enough for me to grow into. It came with me when we moved back to Brookfield, Connecticut and took up residence in an ancient saltbox on Obtuse Hill Road, just a mile or so beyond the country store which had been our first destination. 

We rode regularly; sometimes as a family, sometimes just my Dad and I. We had a usual route with some significant hills, each of which had a name. Obtuse Hill itself was a rare New England road that cut straight through the landscape. It charged up a small hill behind our house and then dropped down a long descent where it crossed a reservoir. It had a fair bit of traffic, and some of it fast. It was not the ride of choice but was necessarily the road to anywhere. 

Just across the bridge over the reservoir, we turned left onto a much smaller and quieter climb out of the river valley, “The Juicer”, so named because it ‘got your juices flowing’. Across the top we maneuvered through some shady lanes eventually crossing the village of Bridgewater. Turning back there was an option, but normally we followed small, winding roads over to the other side of town. Among the variety of route choices on that side of the town, we found a short flat stretch which became our sprinting ground. At some point, before we left, it became the first place I ever beat my Dad in a sprint. It is quite possible that he let me win, but such heresy would never have crossed my young brain. In that area there were a couple of more hills. While less significant, I made sure each had a title that reflected its personality. Those names are lost to me now, but I’ll never forget the chief bastard of them all. “The Drain” was the long, straight pull up out of the reservoir back towards home. It was the final kick in the gut after a 25 mile ride, and always siphoned off the last of our energy. 

Cycling continued to evolve as my portal into an alternate reality. My school bus route included The Drain. Our bus twisted through the neighborhoods on either side of the main road to collect assorted classmates. Most of them rode that hill in cars several times a day and they would never know it the way I knew it. They didn’t know the shadowy piece on the right, just past the bridge, the downshifting in those first 200 yards or the resigned commitment to just grind it out that settled in towards the end of that first quarter mile. For them, the crest held no satisfaction. There was no shift into tighter gears, no chance to stand, shift weight, remove the pressure on their cheeks or to reposition hands onto the drop bars. 

Neither could they know me. I was a geek –– a fat kid who just didn’t make sense to most of them. I cycled that route solo a few times. At least once, I looped through the bus-stop neighborhoods hoping to see and be seen by some of those who caused me so much discomfort on the bus rides. I would love to have provoked at least the faintest bit of doubt or uncertainty but I saw no one. Even if I passed through someone’s gaze, I remained unseen. My strength, my power, remained secret. 

In truth, I did have my posse in those years of 5th, 6th and 7th grade. No doubt, we would be described as a clique. They were the kids in the enrichment program, doing extra studies, and way into Dungeons & Dragons. Never would I have mentioned, in any way, any ride I did. I played football as well. I enjoyed it. I think I was a decent player, but for a Pop Warner lineman there was not a lot of status to be collected. There was even less in riding. I gained no sense of superiority but that fundamental belief in my capability continued to deepen. What some saw as an impossible, ill-considered journey I could sketch out on a map, navigate and arrive. I knew I had limits, and I knew how to push them. Such lessons sink deep. 

My Dad got it into his head that we should ride from our home in Brookfield, Connecticut to my Grandparents house in Montpelier, VT. To me, that sounded like a grand adventure. It was the first time I was ever aware of training for something. We did our 25 mile loop regularly, and we were, I recall, averaging about 14 miles an hour. This trip was my first time using panniers, but we packed light and planned to stay in hotels along the way. I don't remember a set time table or target mileage for each day. If my Dad had an agenda, he kept it to himself. The basic plan was to follow Route 7 up into Vermont. At some point we would have to break off and head up into the Mad River Valley. There were two big climbs already in our mental mile markers. One that we had ridden previously was in Sharon, Connecticut near the Mass border. The other was Mendon Mountain, a climb out of Rutland, Vermont by the Killington ski area. 

Day one was a long day of mighty fine riding. There were a couple of places where Route 7 had been widened and traveled through commercial areas–three and four lane roads, exposed, noisy, and without shade. But mostly we were on tight community roads wreathed in green. Occasionally, we were serenaded by creeks and rivers and indulged in peaceful, shady stops. The anticipated big pull out of Sharon came and went –– about as expected. My clearest image from the day was the two of us resting on the green outside of the Williams Inn in Williamstown, Massachusetts where we decided to call it a day. Apparently just over 100 miles lay behind us. 

Williamstown is one of those places which has been layered with many phases of my life. By the time of this ride my Dad may have been 31 years old. I had come into the world when he was a sophomore at Williams College. I have the vaguest memories of the cabin we lived in – well off campus, and of Fairdale Farms over the Vermont border where my Dad worked at the dairy. In my 11 year-old brain this was all vague and a bit cozy. The history was an extra hint of warmth in the sun as we sat on the green on that fine summer day. I would later ride and walk by that very spot many times during my days as a student –– and cross it once again on a significant ride with my daughter. 

We crossed into Vermont early the next morning. As we climbed away from Williamstown, we came to a section of the new, modernized Route 7. The road was sterile, broad and featureless. The shoulders were wide but the traffic was fast. In those morning hours, the absence of shade was an insignificant detail, but that wouldn’t last long. Throughout that day we alternated between these high-speed zones and sections of “the old Route 7” now bypassed by modernized highways. Occasionally we were treated to a few “unimproved” bits that were yummier still. There, however, was no way to escape the broad concrete slab that led into Rutland. We baked in the afternoon sun as the cars whizzed by. I don’t think either of us were having much fun at that moment. It was a stretch meant for just marking out the miles. Crossing through the center of town we pulled into a side street and took a break on the grass in front of a church. It was time to determine if we would tackle The Mountain that day. It was hot, but I didn’t feel too bad. On we went. 

Even back then, Route 4 was not a particularly beautiful road. It turned off of Route 7 in the heart of Rutland and began a long, gradual climb past gas stations, strip malls, and the sundry ski shops that served Killington –– sometimes 3 lanes, sometimes 4, broad shoulders and baking sun. It was a solid 10 miles all in some flavor of up. There were some stretches of big ring cruising, and a few sections dedicated to grinding. With roughly 80 miles under our belts the climb was a somber commitment, but, as with most things cycling, we settled in to do the job.

Most days, riding has an uneasy coexistence with the rest of life. It is squeezed among all the other priorities and pressures. There is the window where I can get out, and a time by which I must get back to do what has to be done in other facets of my life. On such days, the rides are measured and paced. I know which climb I am on and where each one fits into the route of the day. I have an intimacy with the contours of each bit. I know the shifting points, the rough spots, and places where I might rest. My body anticipates the crests and calculates just how much I can open up on the descents. 

Riding in unknown territory allows for a bit of discovery. I don’t know how long the pitch is, or how steep it will get. Do I have an empty stretch ahead of me? Or does this bit open up on to a local artery–overly busy and under maintained? A touring day adds a whole other dimension to the exploration. Schedules removed, deadlines suspended, pace ignored… the road just is. Destination, start, end often fade into a misty, distant background–barely perceptible through the burning, salty clarity of the here and now. We remind ourselves to drink and rest as the grinding inertia pulls us forward with no clear sense of how much longer. So I was surprised when we crested the highest point on Route 4. It was still early enough in the afternoon to desire shade, but not so early as to require it. 

The mental game of cycling provides many lessons that are inevitably relearned. This, however, was my first stumble into the lesson of exuberant triumph. While that stretch of Route 4 may not be the most beautiful, it had abundant options for hotels and food. With the most challenging hill of our route vanquished, we were feeling TOO GOOD to stop. We slid off of that highest point and veered left down Route 100. 

Route 100 was a damn fine Vermont road –– sinuous and shady with a good bit of shoulder. After baking on the wide open slab, caught in the constant growl of speeding cars, this was a delicious paradise – coasting through the banking corners of the long descent; buzzing on the endorphin hum. Only on the second or third little rolling climb, long after the sweet descent had faded, did I realize that we were in the middle of the woods –– nary a gas station to be seen. Nothing but a LONG pull behind us if we were to turn around. Strength fading, there was little choice but to push on. We made it to a tiny strip motel that barely clung to existence on that empty stretch. It was deep in a narrow section of the valley, barely far enough off the road to allow for parking. We at least had a place to sleep, but our snacks were depleted. The nearest restaurant was more than 10 miles UP behind us, and the hotel owner had no suggestions for the other direction. Once again, we had clocked over 100 miles. 

Salvation came from my grandparents who drove down and whisked us out for dinner back towards Rutland. I don’t remember much about that dinner except that I learned we were a mere 65 miles from Montpelier. There would be some long grades and rolling hills, but no big climbs until the final heft up Main Street on the far side of Montpelier. 

Back on the road the next day we headed north past the intersection with Route 107 onto a section of road that I would cover some 20 years later for my wife’s first century ride. While the pavement was not always the best, it was a lovely stretch of road that flowed up along the headwaters of the White River and then crossed over into the Mad River Valley near the town of Warren. On the left we were up tight against the Green Mountains. To our right the valley broadened and narrowed at the whim of lesser ranges. Though smaller, they still loomed above us. The road stuck to the lowlands –– nothing flat, but nothing scary. At Waitsfield, we were back into the known world, and were finally offered a river valley that carried us away from the Greens. We were at the outer reaches of our regular family outings from Montpelier, and soon in the familiar turf of Moretown. From there it was a relatively easy drift back to Montpelier. A few thunder heads threatened and headwinds greeted us on the flats of Route 2, but it was all just a minor annoyance at that point. 

My grandparents had recently moved from downtown Montpelier to a place my Mom referred to as ‘the Top of World’. In her childhood they sometimes went there to watch sunsets. Main Street was the way to get there. It was one of those ramping climbs that required a downshift every 30 to 40 yards, gradually depleting the reserve and always leaving me a bit disappointed that the levers stop moving well before a steep left turn. The turn itself suggested completion but really only closed the first phase of a long journey up a big ridge The path to Grammy and Grampa continued past the turn, off to the right, and with additional grinding up to the farm at the top of Town Hill Road. We took the short, sharp descent down what became known as “No Boy Friend Hill” and dropped onto a dirt road skirting through an open field and on to the last pull. On the top of that little monster we paused, the mountains unfolded out towards New Hampshire, shimmering and peaceful in the afternoon light. 

I rolled into my Grandparent's house some 270 miles richer and having bagged back to back century rides. It would be more than 20 years before I did another one. For me the big deal was riding all the way from my home to my grandparents house. This was the eternal, profoundly-boring, family car ride on the interstate laid out in cycling terms. I could now measure it in turns of pedals, back roads, shady hideaways, whispering rivers, long climbs, and delicious turns. It was mine. I had arrived. 

The next day my Dad and Grampa continued up through the Northeast Kingdom to the Canadian border. It was a route we would use some years later to inaugurate his tandem. For him that was the arrival point, but it held no magic for me. I was perfectly happy to hang out at my grandparents house and splash in their pool. Life was about to get a whole lot messier.

buy me a coffee

When we first arrived in Ohio, weekends often featured family rides with Mom and Dad. I have no deep memories of these rides beyond that they were neither short nor flat. I dented a rim one time flying down a hill and hitting a pothole, but it didn’t throw me. I learned the rules of the road, how to manage the sections where we had traffic and got comfortable burning through some miles. Jackson Hill was always waiting for me at the end of those rides. I always made it, and that I was proud to be the only one of my friends that could. That I was the only one on a 10 speed had little footing in my 9 year old brain. 

Here was the dawn of that secret knowledge only riders have. I knew that hill in a way none of my friends ever would. I knew where the shoulder had crumbled and where to find the smooth spot through the paving patch. It was laid out in terms of shifting points, where to spin, where to grind. It was my private crucible. It had drunk my sweat and it had spoken to me. There is a tiny, inward smile etched upon that hill that only a fellow rider would know. 

We must have been doing some decent distances because one Easter we decided to do a family bike trip in Kentucky. We were in the heart of Spring so the temperatures were reasonable. I recall most acutely the impression of being in deep. This was a narrow landscape hemmed in by both rock and exuberant vegetation –– beautiful and dark. There were places that never saw quite enough sun to dry out; mossy, rich, and unexpectedly exotic. Rhododendron clustered in mighty groves among the cliffs. Back home we knew them as large ornamental shrubs –– well mannered, decidedly domestic and polite enough to never extend beyond the reach of Dad’s pruning shears. Here they towered some 20 feet above us, twisting, gnarled and draped in moss. Familiar only by leaf and flower, they contributed mightily to the sensation that we were the smallest of garden elves lost in deep forest. 

The gently rolling hills of southern Ohio were poor preparation for this particular slice of The Bluegrass State. These bastards went on forever –– winding through those deep green canyons. Inevitably, they ended with a swift kick in the teeth –– steep pitches across the final quarter mile up to the rim. On the bigger climbs we could catch a break in the trees and behold forest primeval rolling across the horizon. 

Only the second of our three days stands out in my mind. For a while we rolled beside big rivers, fed by tumbling streams falling down the canyon sides through the thick rhododendron forests, and then we would start a climb. We were doing a 60ish mile day and so we went through a few of those climbs. The last climb of the day was a fearsome beast. I have no recollection of when or how it started. I only knew that it was never going to end. At some point in the midst of that long pull Mom’s chain broke. She was rescued by a well-intentioned fellow rider with a complete workshop in his garage. A prompt return to the route with a fully functioning chain wasn’t the outcome Mom most desired at that moment. 

I guess the hill ended at some point because we reached a destination with an impressive view, picnic tables, and a menu where everything looked amazing! Though tired, my hunger was bottomless. I was not alone. And so we all learned it is possible to have ridden so hard that eating is less satisfying than the hunger itself. Our bodies just couldn’t process the food. I don’t think my parents even finished the beers they ordered. It was one of just two times in my life when I have been so destroyed after a day of riding that consuming food was impossible. The next morning, I was shocked to discover the Easter Bunny found me in the hotel room during the night. To this day I have no idea how they pulled that off, nor desire to find out. 

Memory is a slippery thing. I have no recollection of being wise enough to protest this state of affairs. I must have complained, though my parents insist I did not. Was I so passive as not to protest the injustice of laboring 60 miles through such challenging terrain? Could I have been so completely mesmerized by the enchanting scenery? What did it mean to do a ride that left my parents exhausted at the edge of their abilities–– other than that we were together. It was a grand adventure. Adventures are supposed to be hard. The subtle threads of ‘that was something special” and “that is just what we are doing” cannot be teased apart. In the back of my childhood brain the exquisite flavor of “I did that” inhabits the same space as “We did that.” 

I have no way to know if I enjoyed riding at this point in my life. I do know I loved the power that it gave me. I could go places and do things alone that others would only do with a car ride from Mom or Dad. I also knew that riding set me apart. None of my friends rode like I did. I had a different relationship to distance and elevations than any of them. “10 miles from here” meant something different to me – instinctively the calculations of how would begin in the back of my mind. My calculus of the world had already started to shift. Bottles of water and hours of sunlight were as much units of distance as any number on a sign. 

I had started to develop a certain flavor of strength. There was no flex – no currency to be traded among my fellow 9 year olds. This was not the gift of pumping iron or big muscles that we saw in magazines. And yet, I already knew that given enough hours, water and food, I could get from any given A to any given B. I could endure. My right to move through this world was being written into the fibers of my body. For a fat kid with no apparent athletic talent a bit of strength was good. 

Yes, it was in Ohio that I officially became a fat kid and began my life-long battle with obesity. It didn’t go well. They never do. The diets were endless and accomplished nothing. I lied. I snuck food. I ate junk with friends. Of course I didn’t want to be fat, but I didn’t want to be controlled either. The battle sparked a tiny, but fierce and ill-defined rage inside of me. I can see now that my parents desire to control this aspect of my life was a reflection of their own struggles to regain control over their crumbling lives. 

All was not well in my world. One Sunday, when I was taking a bath, my parents came in to tell me that my Dad was leaving and would be staying at a hotel. I was outraged. I have no idea how I learned where his hotel was but I raided our garden for a couple of cucumbers that served as my supplies, jumped on my bike, and showed up in the lobby. It was a harbinger of many things to come.

buy me a coffee

Dad was promoted to be a sales manager in Cleveland Ohio and we moved to Chagrin Falls. We lived on Jackson Hill Road. The “hill” in the name was not a romanticization, and our driveway was right at the top. A half mile further up the road I found a newer neighborhood with a group of boys who were about my age. We all had bikes, but I was the only weirdo with a 10 speed. Among my friends, the primary purpose of a bike was to have skidding contests. While the thinner wheels of my ride ought to have been an advantage, the squishy rim brakes could never compete with the kind of lock up they got out of their single speeds. I did my best, but even when we found large sand patches, I came up short. My parents were kind enough to not ask questions about the large bald spot on my rear tire. 

My friends and I usually traveled around the neighborhood on foot, but there was some wheeled exploration as well. Turtle hunting, for instance, required getting to the swamp in the nature preserve at the bottom of the hill. The preserve was served by a gravel parking lot. Here our competition was to see who could take the turn fastest. I watched my friends peel into the parking lot in a spray of dust, and would not be left out. My thinner tires and higher center of gravity almost ensured that I would wreck. Everyone got a good laugh about that. I got so good at this particular wipe out that I did it two days in a row. The second time hurt a lot more than the first, and drew considerably more blood across my forearm, but there was enough dust for it to clot quickly. The scrape didn’t bother me much after the initial sting. Some great excitement involving salamanders and a friend’s new fish tank conspired to keep me out of the house for a couple of days. By the time I finally walked back in, my wound was black, crunchy, and festering. My parents decided the best treatment was to soak it in warm salt water to loosen up the scabs and draw out the infection. It was my first lesson in the treatment of road rash and among the most painful. Dad read to me as I cried through the pain. It was also my first permanent road rash tattoo. We never came close to catching a turtle. 

My family had left the tight lanes of New England behind. The few country roads we found were in isolated patches of a more suburban landscape. More often, we were on wide slabs complete with central turning lanes, big intersections and strip malls. At least the shoulders were usually healthy. Through the family riding I learned how to handle 5 lane stop lights, use turning lanes, watch out for parking lot exits, and double check the intentions of cars at stop signs. 

Both my parents worked. So I gained flexibility and simplified their lives any time I could find a way to manage my own transportation. During the summer they encouraged me to ride to swim lessons or baseball practice in town. I hated baseball and it was clear that the sport hated me. Left field, far in the outfield, was the only safe place to hide from any expectations that I could catch or throw a ball. I have one vague memory of being on base. To this day, I hate the sport, but I didn’t mind the rides to practice. 

An even better ride was to my Dad’s office. His sales training company used that new fangled video tape technology several years before it became a consumer product, and someone managed to get a bootleg copy of Star Wars. The office was in a suburban office park roughly 12 miles from our house. I made it a regular routine after school to jump on my bike and take over their conference room. 

I am willing to guess that my parents had some debates about the appropriateness of their child being out and about on a bike, but there were never any doubts in my mind. Sometimes it rained. I lost my chain. Brakes rubbed. I might have fallen a few times. I learned not to trust drivers, how to navigate complicated intersections and to deal with my own missed turns. These seem like such simple things when I look back, even then I took them for granted. Thanks to my bike, I began to assume Yes. Yes, I can go. Yes, I will get there. Yes I will deal with the problems. Yes, I took these things for granted, and yes I began to assume that I had a right to move freely through the world. I don’t regret this arrogance.

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Introduction

I try to recall the mind of the child that first started to ride and find only hints and innuendo. More challenging than simple archeology, I walk into the territory of myth and family legend. 

Being on a bike in my family was really not a choice. I was immersed in the same way a child is submerged in language. My education was as thorough as any fanatic could ever hope to produce –– perhaps not with the rigidity of the madrasa, but with the absolute thoroughness of any cult. Rebellious by nature, I am left with the question of how did I come to accept this? Even worse, how did I come to welcome it into the very heart of my identity? 

Blame the Grandparents

I have no memory of my grandparents not riding. My emergence into the world and their transformation into cyclists were not quite simultaneous but close enough in the larger scheme of life. 

They were solid members of the Greatest Generation who grew up in small-town Vermont during the Great Depression. My grandfather, Glen, returned from the Pacific Theater with a serious nicotine addiction and a lot of very bad memories. The only thing he ever said about the war was, “A lot of people got hurt.” They settled back in Montpelier, Vermont where he got a job as a traveling paper salesman. My grandmother, Esther, worked part time as a secretary at one of the local churches. They were active in the community with my Grandfather at the heart of many community initiatives in addition to his work as a lay minister. 

Somewhere before my time Glen quit smoking. Although he played basketball in highschool and had been a coach for at least one of the highschool sports teams, there was no evidence of Coach Glen being eager to drink the fitness elixir. He was an avid gardener and equally committed to afternoon naps. Esther was handy with a needle but not much given to the kitchen. Apparently, there was nary a hint of ciclismo in either of them. I knew them as Grammy and Grampa. 

They raised two beautiful daughters. One of them fell in with a confused young man a year ahead of her in the local highschool. At 18 she was pregnant out of wedlock. Her soon-to-be husband was a paradoxical mix of aspiring hippie and haunted workaholic. I’ve heard tales of difficult times as everyone adjusted to the situation, but I have no memories of any ill will. More than 25 years after my parents divorce, Grammy and Grampa were still laughing through holiday dinners at my father’s house. 

Family legend has it that new empty nesters took their usual summer camping trip to Martha’s Vineyard and, for a change, decided to rent some bikes. Returning to Montpelier they bought a couple of hot five speeds and never looked back. I remember seeing those white Raleighs and so can deduce that this must have happened when I was in the neighborhood of five years old. In 1973, these were serious road machines.

Any credentials they may have missed in being late arrivals to the sport were more than compensated by their enthusiasm. They were evangelical cyclists, eager to preach the creed to all who crossed their paths. There was never an ounce of ‘you oughta’ in anything they did, but it was hard to have a conversation that didn’t involve the weather, routes or road conditions. They were just out there and their infectious energy made other people want to be out there too. 

True evangelists, they assumed responsibility for the spiritual health of future generations. As the first of their grandchildren I became the anchor of their commitment to provide the next generation with their first set of wheels. It was not a promising start. The purple banana bike with the white seat looked really cool, but getting it to move was an entirely different matter. This must have been happening towards the end of second grade. I am certain that I was that last kid in my neighborhood to ever learn to ride, and I was duly embarrassed by that fact. 

We lived on a steep hill in Brookfield, Connecticut, but our driveway cut across the contours of the descent to give us a short stretch of level pavement. To the left of the driveway we had a pair of massive forsythia bushes – huge haystacks of brilliant yellow in my 7 year-old memory. Beyond them, our lawn sloped away down the hill. 

It was always the same. I would start back by the garage, pedal three strokes, veer left, and plow straight into the forsythia. With my parents, my friends, and possibly a babysitter, the result was always the same. 1-2-3 forsythia. 1-2-3 forsythia 1-2-3 forsythia FOR A MONTH! Maybe it was just one long evening but it felt like years. Grammy did not specialize in patience, but somehow she took the deep breath required and found the way to get me on the straight and narrow – at least from garage to mailbox. 

Based on my performance to date, buying me a ten speed was a supreme act of parental faith. It was a maroon red, and slightly too big. On my first ride, I managed to get past the forsythias and out onto the hill where I tried to turn around, hit sand, and promptly ate shit –– my first taste of road rash. 

My Dad was getting more into cycling at that point (or maybe he always had been). We started a Sunday tradition of riding to the country store to get the New York Times and donuts. I huffed the short climb out of our cul-de-sac up to Iron Works Hill Rd, and hung right past my friend’s houses to continue down around a bend. This was a New England country road, narrow and sinuous –– a reformed carriage path cut through the forests. Maple, Ash and Birch threw deep shadows over the asphalt except in a couple of places where the newer houses had been built. Cool hot. Hot cool. Dappled and textured. I remember empty roads –– just my Dad and me. Perhaps Sunday mornings really were that way. Perhaps my unsteady meanderings terrified no drivers and posed no danger. Perhaps. 

Right at the next stop sign, down a sharp hill –– my first nemesis. On the return it was a gradual pull that suddenly got steeper as it rounded a corner near the top. I would zip down the little grade that led up to it, drop into my lowest gears and spin like hell, but the momentum was never quite enough. I have come to think of this kind of grade as a “Bitch Pitch”, they slowly sap my strength and then clobber me with that final steep incline. Returning a few years later I was pleased to note my former nemesis was at least worthy of the small chain ring. And a few years after that, it was all but leveled as the road was modernized. 

Beyond the nemesis, we’d make our way across a couple of more small rollers. This may be the place where I first learned to let up on the brakes and coast up the other side of a dip. The tiny town center had no need for a stoplight in those days. My elementary school was down to the left off of the three way intersection. Later, that street, Obtuse Hill Road, was to become my home and primary riding grounds. The name was appropriate. 

My Dad’s bike was a beat up mustard yellow 10 speed with one of those spring loaded clamp racks in back. The clamp was completely useless when confronted with a Sunday Times and a box of donuts. He had some trick involving bungee cords. I don’t remember anything falling off on the way back. 

Total distance, round trip may have been five miles, but it was our first route, and my first taste of adventure. It had all the sparkle of a little bit of fear, a touch of challenge and that sacred bond of childhood –– just my Dad and me out in the world. 

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