Off the seat of a bicycle
Chapter 1 Off the seat of a bicycle

My wife suggested I write a book.
She was not specific but I knew my life as a bicycle activist had to be chronicled… if for no other reason than to re-tell the story to myself.

Looking back it’s obvious my accomplishments in life have been minor by any measure, and most blunted by an inability to associate in prolonged relationship with others. But nowhere has my life been more storied than the work I undertook off the seat of a bicycle.

Perhaps these stories merely chronicle a man who is different, who has taken his frustration out on a perceived enemy, who became an enemy of the people and required smite by law enforcement, but inside this book you are left to decide.

My first day on a bicycle started at 9 years old in Bedford Indiana after Santa brought me a little red bike with white side-wall tires.
Our family gathered on the street in front of our house and my father held on the first few times, but soon I was ready for my first solo flight.
I sailed alone down a sloping Indiana road where I fell over into the neighbors mailbox, popped up grinning and unhurt and ready to go again.

From then on I was lifted to freedom on a bicycle, and defied gravity and floated into the air.
I was ready to travel long walks and discover the magic that physical activity had on my mind and body. There was no pounding on bones, no delayed gratification, only a steady breeze and the effortless flow of visual stimuli.

I discovered the motion of dance and gravity; and suddenly my life became untethered by permission. I could go anywhere, wearing exactly what I had on, with nothing more than my strength as a limitation. I was the horse and traveler in one.

It wasn’t long before my neighborhood grew too small, and early one Sunday I rode out to the four-lane highway. It was a trafficless moment that existed briefly in 1959, forever replaced by America’s frenzy of guzzlers and hogs.

I remember feeling cautionary and holding fast to the edge of the road, but determined to venture on as I pedaled toward downtown. My estimate today marks it a half mile before I arrived at the big bridge that spanned the railroad gorge.

I knew those tracks and played there alone many times. I remember going to the railroad one day after school and walked way up the rails. I was 8 years old, and on the return trip, I almost ran down the regular path but at the last moment I changed direction, going 20 feet further, and turned down a rabbit trail over to the fence instead.

It was a fateful decision born of intuition or luck, who knows ... but it was a creed that decisions would take throughout my life: I would follow my impulse and believe it to be the right path.

As I was crawling over the square-hole fence into the cow field, I heard a sound behind me and looked back at the trail I just avoided.
 
A short dirty man was standing up in the chest-high brush growling and clawing the air with fingers sprung open like a cat’s claw. I missed being grabbed by 20 feet, and understood instantly, but wasn’t afraid.

Sometimes I felt fear in my life, but not then. He missed me and now I was too far away, and I turned and ran across one field and then another to get home. Days passed before I mentioned the man to my mother, and her immediate alarm made me realize the greater peril I narrowly missed. But her reaction caused me concern.
I didn’t want her to stop me from going to the railroad, so I dismissed the incident, and dismissed the danger and fell silent, and never mentioned it for another 42 years. To me the incident was important, but just a life-lesson is how I saw it.

Here I was at the railroad tracks again Sunday morning. Far above the tracks below, I had stopped riding and could smell the ‘railroad’ smell of tar and timber, and decided to ride my bike across the cement bridge and over to my fourth-grade school on the other side.

I straddled the bike on the edge of the four-lane road, with 2 lanes each direction. There was no traffic, but just as I began to push off, a car came from behind and started honking. I turned and saw the car intentionally steer from the outer lane, into my lane toward me, while continuing to honk. There was nobody else around, just the car with a man and woman, and me.

The car didn’t drive past especially close, but why did he do it? Was he declaring it dangerous for a boy to ride across the bridge?

Perhaps most car-people would agree the driver did the young boy a favor … the same favor I would see repeated many times during the years by socially cognizant people.

The incident caused me to change direction and ride for home, where I had bacon and eggs with my father. But inside me, I heard the world saying it is unsafe for bicycles, and I heard it the first time I ventured out on a city street.

Was this paranoia or was it plain truth that later experience bore out as real?

I say it’s the truth.
I challenge anyone who says the city street is less dangerous than the railroad track.
What difference is there between a man swerving his car towards you and a man hiding in the bushes? Maybe the intent of one is worse than the endangerment of the other, but aren’t they both caused by expected and ordinary human behavior?

Chapter 2) My life defied the impulse to harm
Chapter 3) Caving
Index of chapters