Biking: Like a Kid

Like every other suburban American boy back around 1970, my first bike was a Schwinn Stingray. Rob's was red, mine was green, and Ed's was blue, and we rode them all the time.

Besides transportation the Stingrays provided entertainment, and many tests of skill: you had to learn to ride with no hands, of course, and to skid, and to do a decent wheelie. We invented all sorts of bike games of speed/ agility/ creativity to while away the summer hours -- one involved going as slowly as you could around our neighbor's driveway, at times balancing on your bike at almost a dead stop.

With the banana seat you could give someone else a ride, too. And Mom would send us on simple errands, from a pretty early age.

Rob and I both graduated to 10-speeds the same Christmas, a few years later. We were living in West Chester, Pennsylvania (outside of Philadelphia) at the time, and I seem to recall having to pony up half of the $160 purchase price. Now our range was really expanded -- to school, to church, to every friend's house, to the pool in the summer, and to the Exton Mall.

Ahh, the mall -- Utopia for a kid in junior high, especially with a couple of bucks in his pocket. Fast food everywhere, the "Time Out" arcade, and Spencer's Gifts, with its funny (and sometimes naughty) inventory of junk. But in hindsight the best part was the freedom: to go wherever, with whomever, and do whatever, as long as you were home for dinner.

To get to the mall from our house you had to go down the hill on Ship Road. It was huge -- from the top you'd shift into 10th gear, stand up and pedal hard, and in a few seconds you were going so fast you couldn't drive the pedals any more. You'd tuck into a crouch and coast all the way down, going 30 mph? 35? We timed the mall trip once, and it took 12 minutes to get there and 30 minutes home. (You'd grind your way back up the hill in 1st or 2nd gear, and sometimes just have to walk your bike up.)

A few years later and biking became second-class transportation -- kid stuff, when you could be driving. But I didn't have a car, so it was usually better than walking. I commuted to a couple of summer jobs on that same 10-speed.

The bike has generally been a toy since then, taken out a few times a year for fun. My current one I bought when I lived in Chicago, 17 (yikes!) years ago. It serves me just fine, and I certainly haven't used it enough to justify anything newer or fancier.

I've been getting out for long rides on weekend mornings this summer, well before the kids are awake, and I'm really enjoying it. Heading north from Evanston you can pick up a couple of different bike paths, or just stay on the scenic north suburban streets. I did a 30-mile ride this way a couple of weeks ago (to Lake Forest and back), which was pushing it for me, but I survived.

Heading south there's a trail along McCormick Boulevard, next to the canal, which takes you through the narrow sculpture park all the way to Devon Avenue in Chicago. With a short jog east and south you pick up the trail on the east side of the canal, and it takes you through Chicago city parkland all the way down to Lawrence. I haven't yet taken Lawrence east to Lake Michigan, where the lakefront trail then goes right downtown -- maybe this weekend.

For me the suburban ride north is beautiful and the Chicago ride south is exciting, the way most things Chicago are to a suburbanite. I don't think I'm exactly hooked on biking, in the obsessive-compulsive way my family tends to do things, but it's a nice composite of exercise, sightseeing, and fresh air. I'll mind the cars, and maybe see you out there?

Pat