 |
| Ahh. |
I realize that I
could ride my bike all winter if I really wanted, but let’s face it, I’m not
that dedicated. It would be super cold, and I’d probably slip on the ice and
crack my head open. I can barely stay upright on ice with my own two feet;
imagine me trying to stay vertical on a bike. Not happening.
So my bike
hibernates for the winter, but both my bike and I start to get antsy once
Daylight Savings hits. Surprisingly enough, Sioux Falls has some pretty decent
bike trails, so I have someplace to go. And even better: I have somebody to go
with me. James is a bicycle fanatic: he was one of those guys who used to do tricks
on those little tiny bikes. Nowadays, he has a couple of road bikes that he
rides for miles and miles and MILES. James will never say no to a bike ride,
but if you even casually mention it, you’d better be ready to follow through
with that ride: rain or shine. You know how some dogs get really really excited
when you say “walk”? That’s what happens to James when you say “bike ride,”
further enforcing my theory that James has the personality of a Labrador.
(Which, believe it or not, is a compliment: he’s friendly to everyone, he’s happy
to see me when I get home, and he’s always smiling. If James had a tail, it
would always be wagging.)
 |
| See how happy he is? |
Anyway, bikes.
It all began with the shiny red tricycle I got for what I’d like to say was my
fourth birthday. My deep and abiding love for the color red was already in high
gear, so this red trike was clearly the best thing ever. I rode it everywhere…
or, everywhere that a girl of four in rural South Dakota can ride a trike.
 |
| So... around the yard. |
That
tricycle was a true champion: it survived whatever hell I put it through, and
it lasted through my sister and brother, as well. I could be wrong, but I’m
pretty sure that little trike is in my parents’ shed, ready for its next
enthusiastic rider.
You probably
would’ve noticed a trend here, but I’m going save you the time and just tell
you: every single bike I’ve owned has been a birthday present. My second bike
was a gift for my sixth (I think?) birthday, and it was a six year old’s dream:
I’m mildly sure that the name of the model was something like “Dream Sparkles.”
It was hot pink and turquoise with many MANY sparkles, streamers on handles,
and a basket on the front.
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| If you can look past the stunning pumpkins, you'll see an equally stunning bicycle. |
It came with training wheels, and it may or may not
have been an embarrassingly long time before I manned up and let my dad take
those training wheels off.
Once Dad got the
training wheels off and I realized I wasn’t going to fall over and die, my bike
and I were best friends. I put my stuffed animals and Barbies in the basket and
drove them all around the farm. I loved bike rides after it rained: my Barbies
would have to scoot over to make room for all the salamanders I found. We would
go camping every now and again when I was a kid, and we hauled my neon bike
along with us. I biked my little heart out, all through the big loop that was
the campground. There was a GIANT (“giant” in six-year-old terms, anyway) hill
near the dock, and that (obviously) was my favorite part. It was the next best
thing to a roller coaster (or, what I assumed roller coasters were like, as I
didn’t have much roller coaster experience at the time): it was free, there
were no lines, and there was a whole lot more danger of wiping out, which made
the ride down the hill all the more exciting.
When I turned
ten, I received what appeared to be the most badass bike a ten-year-old could
possibly imagine: it was an actual adult bike (true story: I was fully grown by
the age of eight), so I felt impossibly mature. My bike was metallic pink and
purple, and it had TEN WHOLE SPEEDS. And HAND BRAKES. And a WATER BOTTLE
HOLDER.
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| Mine is the bike on the left. I was in ten-year-old heaven. |
To top it all off, my friend Sarah had the same bike, just with
different patterns on the hand grips. We rode our matching bikes all around my
gravelly yard (until hers got tangled in a barbed wire fence, but what do you
do).
Yes, I loved my
bike… but, unfortunately, I hit an “I hate being outside” phase. I stopped
wearing any kind of clothing that would reveal my legs, and I turned down rides
on the boat in favor of remaining in the air conditioning and having the house
to myself. I don’t know what my problem was, but I lost too much lake/bike time
to my dumbass teenage ways.
I embraced
shorts and the outdoors again in my late teens, but I didn’t really start
riding my bike again until I was a junior in college. By this time, James (bike
enthusiast, remember?) and I were dating, and he begged me to bring my bike
from home. I did just that and promptly realized that bikes in college are
genius.
 |
| GENIUS, I tell you. |
I was living off-campus and quickly found out that biking to school was
much better than walking. My roommate Sara and I took our bikes to explore the
mysterious west side of Morris – and endeavor that would’ve been a lot less fun
in a car.
 |
| Though there were some casualties. |
By this time, my
metallic bike was more than ten years old, and it looked VERY 90s in the harsh
light of 2007. I wanted a new bike, but I was too cheap/poor to buy one. I
casually mentioned to James how a new bike would be nice, and he took this on
as a personal mission. James is the champion of a lot of things: champion of
shitty cars, champion of difficult parallel parking, champion of living on rice
alone for months on end… and champion of finding nice bikes for little to no money.
Before I knew it, James had procured a gold vintage Huffy bike from a friend’s
garage: the bike had been there when they had rented the house, and they were
happy to get it out of there.
All my new bike
needed was a new seat and a new set of tires, and it was road ready.
My
metallic bike from the fourth grade had served me well, but now I had a kickass
new-to-me bike that I could ride while feeling like a real college student.
Besides, the hipsters at Morris all had expensive faux-vintage bikes, and here
I was with the real thing. Feeling superior to hipsters is a favorite past-time
of mine.
When I graduated
from college, my gold bike took shelter in my parents’ shed. I wasn’t going to
haul it to Denver and New Orleans (especially in New Orleans, where I lived in
a shed and had barely enough room for me, let alone a bike), but I knew it
would be waiting for me when I came back.
I moved to
Minneapolis in January 2010: NOT bike weather. Even when spring came, I was
still a little hesitant to bring my bike to Minneapolis. Yes, Minneapolis is
Bike City USA, but it’s also terrifying. Not all of Minneapolis has bike lanes,
and you definitely can’t ride on the sidewalk. Take uptown Minneapolis, for
example. The streets are narrow, and there are cars parked on both sides. If
you’re on your bike, you must ride in that narrow space between the parked cars
and the moving cars, and it looks like the worst thing ever. I am nowhere near
brave enough for that. Plus, I have poor balance, so that’s another strike
against me.
The Twin Cities
area has some beautiful parks and bike trails, so I brought my bike from
Arlington, and we (my bike and I) played it safe and avoided the city streets. James
– who is much braver and has excellent balance – threw caution to the wind and
rode all over the place. It was glorious, and we felt like card-carrying
Minneapolins. (or Minneapolites? what do you call people who live in Minneapolis?)
James moved to
Ellsworth in fall 2010 to start his teaching job, and my bike-riding companion
was gone. I remained in Minneapolis for another year, but James did stay with
me over the summer and happily rode his bike the whole time. When I moved to
Sioux Falls, my bike came along, and James and I proceeded to explore my new
neighborhood (which really blows compared to my Minneapolis neighborhood, but
oh well). While it does have some bike trails, Sioux Falls isn’t near as
bike-friendly as Minneapolis. You’d be loath to find a bike lane, and riding
along in Sioux Falls traffic is a death wish (just DRIVING in Sioux Falls is a
death wish!).
In Sioux Falls,
most of the recreational bike riders stick to the bike trails, so you’ll never
see them on the streets. As a general rule, the people you see riding their
bikes on the streets of Sioux Falls are the ones whose licenses have been taken
away for too many DUIs. So, yeah… nothing like Minneapolis.
I loved my gold bike,
but I had been dying for a bright red bike since forever. James, always looking
for a project (and double points if said project involves bikes) offered to
paint my bike red as part of my birthday present last year.
James did a FANTASTIC
job; he stripped off the old paint (here’s hoping he doesn’t die of lead paint
inhalation) and repainted my bike bright candy apple red. My friends, it is
glorious. It’s an ongoing project: it’s hard to paint a bike in a small-ish
apartment, so James has major plans for my bike once the weather warms up again.
He’s going to add white pinstriping and all sorts of other white detailing that
he’s really excited about. And whitewall tires. James is using Pee Wee Herman’s
bike as inspiration, and I cannot wait for the finished product.
 |
| What a beauty. |
So now that
being outside no long causes my nostrils to freeze shut, I’m itching to get out
on my bike – it’s been languishing in the apartment for too long. So if you see
me riding around Sioux Falls, a.) please don’t run me over, and b.) bring your
bike along next time and join me!
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