The Skyliner, the Renegade, and my Father

Today I got a bike! It's a brand new Schwinn Skyliner. Isn't she a beauty? I pimped her out with a bell, an attached security cable, and a brand new attachable pump. Soon I'll add the rear basket and headlight and I'll be ready to bike to work, to the store, to anywhere!

I was a bit worried, because she had a few cosmetic dings - but I got her from a discount store, so I can't really complain. Also a little paint fixed the cosmetic flaws, and she rides like a dream. I went on a test ride in the store and was immediately impressed. (She rode better than the Huffy I also looked at.) I then took her on an inaugural ride at home, and have been itching to take her on yet another ride. It's dark here now, and since I don't yet have the headlight I can't exactly take her out.

It felt good to carry the spirit of the roadtrip over into my daily life. I can't wait to start incorporating the bike into my everyday routine. I really hope I can use the bike to commute to work. I think it will be okay. It's only 2 miles; I just need to find a safe route for bikes.

I was also happy, because while I had planned on purchasing a bike, I received this one as a birthday gift! My mother decided to buy it, and I am very very grateful. It wasn't expensive (for a bike) since I was at a discount store. As I was debating whether or not to make a purchase - she stepped in and bought it for me. Maybe she assumed that I would stand there and debate it forever, and end up not buying it, if she didn't step in. I tend to do that - over think something that I am really keen on at the last minute.

My parents also bought my first bike for me on my 6th birthday. It was red, and I believe it was called "The Renegade" - if I remember correctly - by Huffy. (Things are a bit rose tinted and Monet painted due to the year difference, but I'm pretty certain.) I was so excited, and eager to learn how to ride a bike, but was very happy I had training wheels.

So you can imagine how scared and horrified I was when my father bent the training wheels up toward the sky, helped me onto the seat and said: "go!" He didn't believe in training wheels, said I didn't need them, and took me straight out on the dirt road. It was ride or fall, and I rode. When I did fall, he helped me up - dusted me off - and told me to get back on. By the end of the afternoon, I was riding like I had been riding for years.

My father taught me many things, but the lesson on riding a bike is one of the most important and vivid legacies I feel he left me. I will forever be thankful for that. It took me years to learn how to swim, because I was allowed too many crutches: floats, shallow ends, etc. I could always find a way to avoid actually swimming. Now I am a wonderful swimmer, and I enjoy it, but then I was terrified of water. If I had relied on the crutch of training wheels, who knows when I would have actually ridden a bike without them? I was afraid of the bike without them, but I rode it anyway. Life doesn't come with training wheels, and neither should bicycles. In some situations it is better to dive right in and force yourself to swim.

I think we often baby ourselves and children nowadays. We make things too simple. For example, a teacher friend of mine told me that he isn't allowed (by the school administration) to give his students below a 60 on ANY assignment - even if they don't do it or never turn it in. Plus, all of the assignments can be resubmitted for higher scores. Complete failure is not an option. Failure is something you now have to work for to accomplish. Passing is taken for granted.

Whatever happened to failure as a motivator? I may have never done some homework assignments if I had known that I wouldn't fail a course. The idea of failure - of falling off the bike - motivates a person to ride. Without the option of failure, there is no incentive for improvement - no incentive to ride. In that one afternoon, Dad taught me about more than riding a bike; he taught me about life.

Not a day goes by that I don't think of my dad. I miss him so much, but I am thankful that I had 26 years with him. I wish he could see my new bike. Maybe he would have gotten one too. I received my last bike sometime in my teenage years. My father bought one too, and we rode together several times. It wasn't as often as I would have liked; I wish we had ridden together more. Life intervened, however, and it wasn't meant to be. It was something we both neglected to make time for. (Funny the things you think about after someone passes.) Still, I wish we could go on another bike ride together now. I do have my memories though, and everytime I ride my bike I will be thankful of that summer day over 20 years ago - the dusty ochre and terra-cotta road rising before me, the red Renegade beneath me, and my tan-faced father behind me - encouraging me. So in a way, my father lives on. He lives on in my memories, in lessons he passed on to me, and in all the bike rides yet to come.