Points of Interest

Life in the Bike Lane - Tom Frady

Mrs. Bike Lane and I had driven down to Folsom last week and I was feeling a little down because I have not been able to participate in my usual rides due to weather, holidays, family and (mostly) a nagging injury keeping my mileage down.

I started to show her where a bunch of us got flat tires from thorns left in the road from some maintenance work about ten years ago, but held off.   

Just a bit farther down the road was where Dave hit a curb and took a fall, which involved some blood.  It was many years ago.  I didn’t say anything.

Quick!  Look!  That’s where we get on the bike path.

Not far from there was the place where there isn’t a bike-themed café anymore.

I didn’t say anything, but it seems she would be very interested in that information.

I have ridden pretty much everywhere in the last 6325 days in the approximately 500 square miles with Lincoln as the center, and it comes in handy when we need to find our way to someplace new.  If my wife asks if I know how to get to somewhere, I answer “I can get there on a bike”.

A note to you eight loyal readers:  Going somewhere by car or by bicycle is not always the same.  In fact, there is a donut shop 2.2 miles from our starting point.  It can take a 30-mile ride to get there and another 20 to get home . . . if you are riding it right.

On more than one occasion, we have been driving back from somewhere, taking the “back way” (Howsley/Sunset from Highway 99) home and been detoured by flooding in the dead of night (8:15) to some road called “PFE” with no more directive signs provided.

Been there.  Rode that.  PFE crosses Walerga which becomes Fiddyment which leads to Lincoln.

On one or two occasions (again over 6325 days), the Mrs. has asked “Do you ride here?” (Sierra College Blvd in Rocklin) or “You climb this hill?” (English Colony).  The answer is always “yes”.

(I note I am using “quite a few” quotation marks and parentheses today.)

But it has been months since I have been on some roads I used to traverse regularly.  Roads like Aeolia, Lou Place and Cherry St.  A nostalgic feeling surges through me when a photo comes up on my computer slide show depicting such places.

But every now-and-then we decide to go for a drive on some quiet retired folks’ afternoon.  I use some point of interest I found on a bike ride as the destination (after a quick stop for a root beer freeze from A&W).  The lake.  Where the zebra used to be.  The small herd of Shire horses.  A favorite house with a wraparound porch.  Sometimes, like a good bike ride, a good drive with someone you like can feed the soul.