LET'S BIKE!
by
Sally Single-Senior (a pseudonym); (copyright 1997 All Rights Reserved)
Last summer, I saw a notice in the newspaper that an
environmental group was sponsoring a bike ride on the Island,
Sunday at 6 p.m. That's for me I said to myself. This being a
retirement community, I figured the riders would be seniors like
me.
I love to ride a bike. My husband and I biked through
the Cotswalds in England one summer. A couple of years ago, I
entered the Senior Olympics bicycle race. It was a crazy thing
to do I know. That's one thing about being a senior, you can do
crazy things.
Like the time I entered my dog Lily in the Purina
Great American Dog contest. She was 14 years old at the time,
tottering along stiff legged. She was so skinny people would ask
me, when she went to the supermarket with me, if I had fed her
lately.
I hadn't raced a bicycle since I was a school girl
some 60 years ago. But how many seniors race bikes I asked
myself? What the hey-I'll give it a shot.
On the appointed day I put the bike on the bike rack
and headed for the country road that had been closed off for the
race. Cars were lined up along one one side of the road where
people were unloading their bicycles. As I got a closer look I
said to myself this must be the wrong race. Seniors-never!
They had flat bellies, bulging biceps and skin tight
tights called gripper legs. But this was the right race; they
were seniors. And the bicycles! You should have seen them: state
of the art. Cross max wheels, thermo bar, control grips, master
tires, turbo tubes, carbo tech saddle.
My bike is an old Raleigh-are they still making them?
It is a clunker: no gears, the yellow paint rusted away. I call
her "The Yellow Rose". My husband had gotten it for me years ago.
I fell into conversation with a woman who was
breathing heavily. Must have emphysema I said to myself. No, she
had had heart by-pass surgery. It turned out she and I were the
only ones in our age group for the 5 km.
Piece of cake I said to myself. As we lined up at the
starting line, she wrapped a red bandanna around her nose and
mouth, the same one my dog wears. The gun went off, and we took
off. I quickly ran out of steam, as she passed me. I was told
later that I started off too fast and became anaerobic.
I got my second wind at the halfway turn-around and
headed for the home stretch. I was leading! I was winning!
Suddenly, I was aware of a breeze on my left side and saw a red
badanna sail past me. Did I mention that I had started first?
I have a beautiful silver medal on a red ribbon on a
pole in my living room. And I have a t-shirt that says on the
back, in bold red letters, "We're Off Our Rockers".
I learned some valuable lessons from that experience.
For instance, "Senior" to the Olympics means 50 and up. And I
learned that senior bike racing is serious business. These
people follow races all over the country winding up at the
Nationals in Atlanta. Bike racing is their retirement career.
They are pros for god's sake!
I'm so innocent, so naive, so stupid.
Once again, I hoist my bike onto the bike rack, but
this time I head in the opposite direction, toward the beach. I
envision a leisurely ride along the gulf.
It's a skinny, off-shore island, what Dave Barry calls
a One Road Island. I join six or eight people, mostly women, who
are unloading their bikes, but this is quite a different group
from those at the Senior Olympics. They look as though they have
sense enough not to enter a bike race. In fact, a little later,
I wished they would go a tad faster.
Our Leader, a gregarious fellow, gives instructions:
helmet, gloves, single file.
"Follow me," he says, "We will be on Gulf Drive very
briefly. We'll stay on side roads."
He finds one which dead ends very quickly. He turns
left across a small lot and then inches through a narrow
passageway between two buildings. We follow, but can't negotiate
the two-foot wide opening without getting off our bikes.
We are back on Gulf Drive. We go about two blocks when
Our Leader turns into a parking lot. We could hear raucous
laughter coming from a shack at the far end of the parking lot,
which, oddly enough,
is called, "The Shack".
We follow Our Leader to The Shack where we are greeted
by more raucous laughter, this time aimed at us. Men with beer
cans in hand stream out of the bar to check out our bikes,
laughing and shaking
their heads like it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.
A bar maid asks,
"Where are you folks from?" Implied was "From Mars?"
Our Leader goes in, past the "Full" sign, slides into
a seat by the window, then drops his beer can onto the table
with a loud crash. We huddle around the screen door which slams
whenever anyone comes in or out. I get just over the door jamb
when a fit of claustrophobia overcomes me, and I bolt.
Our Leader comes out and says, "You gals better come
on in."
Come in? Are you kidding? People are packed in there
like sardines.
"There are a lot of guys in there," he says.
So that was it. Another `dating game' like the senior
dance I had attended. I ask Our Leader if there will be any more
stops.
"Oh yes," he says, "we'll stop for dinner and a couple
more beers."
"But I thought you weren't supposed to drink while
biking," I said.
He looked at me as though to say, "Where are you from?
Venus?"
I don't know what happened after that. I returned to
my car, put the bike back on the rack and headed home. I could
hear my singles dance friends,
"Remember. Bike ride doesn't mean BIKE RIDE. Bike ride
means beer ride. You are so innocent, so naive, so stupid."
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