I grew up the youngest of 8 kids. We all were insane when it came to
bicycle riding. The tricycle that I started out with was remarkably fast
and would slide nicely in the dirt or on ice. I graduated from that to the
black beauty. It was some ancient 40's or 50's girl frame bike. Of course,
the fact it was a girl frame bike didn't help matters any. Once I outgrew
that, I had a choice. Either another ratty arched frame monstrosity that
weighed as much as a 57 Buick or I could buy my own bike. I got a paper
route and my very first purchase was a second-hand Western Flyer 3-speed. I
used that as my paper route bike for about five years. I did buy a sweet
Schwinn Continental II 10-speed. 36 stinking pounds. Wow, was it heavy in
today's standards. But I could make that thing fly. A couple of my brothers
had Paramounts that were very drool worthy.
Paper routes are horrible on bikes and I had to rebuild both the Western
Flyer and the Schwinn a few times over. I did have an unfortunate incident
with the WF one day. My route took me down this short access road from the
top of a bluff to the lake road at the bottom. This driveway like path was
about as steep as you can make an asphalt machine stick to the ground. It
really was treacherous and impossible to ride up. Going down this hill I
was on the brakes (with a full load of papers in the racks) when the drum
overheated and started doing something nasty. Inotherwords, I no longer had
any brakes. I'm picking up speed and there is traffic crossing.
Unfortunately, there was no visibility at the bottom as you just emerge
from this chute. By the time I'm at the bottom of the hill, I'm doing maybe
30 miles an hour, I hit the hard angle change of the road, which must have
dislodged something loose in the drum because suddenly the wheel locks up.
I skid across the road and into the grass on the other side. It's only 10
feet from the edge of the road to the water. I sail off into the water.
When I get to a stop, I'm standing in about a foot of water and there's an
acrid smoke coming from the drum. I missed a car by only inches. When I
launched off the road and into the water I did come off the pedals and seat
which meant that I was wondering why God ever created us with dangling
giblets. I think I cried. The brakes never worked right on that bike after
that. I did acquire a couple other $10 junker bikes to keep the WF running.
In the late '80s, I bought another Schwinn. I think it was a Voyager.
Regardless, I did a bunch of mods to it to make it a bit lighter and go
faster. Sold it to my wife's nephew about 15 years ago. After that I got
serious and bought a Cannondale mountain bike. There was actually a bit of
strategy to it. This was my 4WD for photography purposes. I'd drive the car
to the area and then take the bike the rest of the way. By delaying the
purchase of a 4WD by about three years, I figured it paid for itself a few
times over.
In hindsight, I don't long for ANY of my old bikes. Those were heavy beasts.
AG
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
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