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
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