Tired, but Stronger

Life in the Bike Lane

By Tom Frady

Bike riding is freedom.  No matter your route, you’re getting away.

Like many, if not most people, I have always had a bike.  I remember my dad helping me to learn how to ride on a hand-me-down bike from my sister.  No gears.  No brakes.  No paint.   A true fixie.

Looking back, I am amazed how much freedom I had on my bike.  My first “neighborhood” was actually on the grounds of the California Institution for Men, a prison in Chino, CA. (My Dad, at that time, was Captain of the Guard.)  My friends (all two of them) and I were somewhat contained to one street with 8 houses and a large parking lot.

But we moved when I was 10, to real life.  We rode all over the place. Bike riding as a boy was all about independence.  I was beyond the reach, sight and influence of my parents. I rode from the familiar to the unknown. The bike took me places far beyond the range of my feet: all the way downtown.

We rode our bikes down Terrace Hill, down the hill side, not the road.  We built ramps in the street so we could go airborne.   We ruined a few croquet sets and several spokes playing hockey in the cul-de-sac.  I had a paper route that was on the other side of town.  The skinny-tired bike I got when I was 9 was the same one I had as a freshman in college.  It literally fell apart.

As an adult, cycling is my favorite form of exercise.   I used to jog.  Knees.  Skiing.  Expense.   Cycling is my road to a healthier lifestyle. But it is still about freedom.  A car can get you where you want to go faster, but it can’t go farther than a bike. It’s possible to ride across a state — which I have — or the nation.

I have kinda lost track, but I bought my first new bike in about 2002.  A mountain bike.  About a year later, I purchased my first road bike, sight unseen, over the phone.  I caught the fever.

I retired mid-2004 and by mid-2005 I was on that bike, riding from SF to LA with 2400 friends as part of AIDS/lifecycle.  You can make the 390-mile drive in about 5 ½ hours.  Or you can take seven days riding 545 miles, so you don’t miss the small towns not on the freeway, riding through miles of vineyards and lettuce fields, finding little coffee shops and fruit stands to fuel your journey.

Of course, that’s what you miss on almost any drive.

The distance between the towns where we camped overnight varied from 45 to 108 miles.  To many people, riding a bike 80 miles in a day, then doing it again the next day, seems more like a punishment than pleasure. But for me it is pure freedom:  freedom from bills; freedom from habit and routine; freedom from television, computers (OK, I carry my phone and have a Garmin GPS unit) and the internet; freedom from obligations, responsibilities, duties and chores.

(Yeah, yeah.  I’m retired.  How many obligations could I have?  Are you married?)

Long-distance cycling distills life to what is important right now: the next mile, the next town, the next donut, reaching the final destination. There is an acute awareness of which way the wind is blowing. You hear from parts of your body that have heretofore been silent.  You didn’t realize so many skunks try to cross the road.  When all you have to do that day is ride a bike, life can seem pretty simple.

I have ridden about 135,000 miles since I started keeping track about 23 years ago. That’s certainly no record, but it impresses some friends, if not my grandchildren.  A good ride can take all day, and you end up exhausted but exhilarated, tired but stronger.  I’m always ready for the next day