Saturday, October 20, 2007

The joy of bikes

It is both interesting and refreshing to be back in a lifestyle and in a place where bikes are the main transpor- tation for many people. Here you see me coming home with flowers carefully wedged into the top of the backpack.

It is sort of amazing what gets carried on bikes. In my first year in grad school, I carried all the components for a brick and board bookcase across Cambridge, MA, known for slightly crazy traffic on my bike. I have seen half sides of beef on a bike in some places. It escalates up in many places with scooters. I have seen whole families on scooters in Taiwan and elsewhere. I remember riding on motorcycle taxis in Santo Domingo and sharing some anxiety with Sandy as to whether all our kids (then aged 2, 5 and 8) would manage to hang on to the several bikes we were spread across.

Last year when he worked in Mozambique, my son Rolf really got into being part of the big mass of people who got around on bikes. Mozambicans are more used to seeing white guys in cars, so he got a lot of smiles of solidarity. Here is picture of Rolf's bike out in the countryside outside Beira, where he got a kick out of just riding around.

That is fun. I remember how exciting and liberating it was to ride my bike (a then very exciting Schwinn one speed) from our farm in Kuna, Idaho into the neighboring, larger town of Nampa to see my nephews, Andy and Dan, or go to the movies. It was more work than a car but it also made the experience more special. So here is a Schwinn ad that I remember seeing, even though it doesn't have the red one speed classic of my youth on it.

It was exciting step up to get first a three speed and then a ten speed bike in college. I remember thinking then that a ten speed road bike was in some ways a perfect piece of technology. I could carry it if need be, fix it myself, but still get around pretty fast.

1 comment:

Christian said...

Maybe I should get me a bike. Hmmm . . .