Ode to my bicycle

It's Labor Day so I'll keep this quick, but today as I climbed out of the woods of Schenley Park on my Scott Scale 650, I shouted out, for I had to tell the world: I love my bike. Like with all relationships, each one hopefully has it's benefits, even if only to show us our own weaknesses or what we decidedly don't want as an influence in our lives. There are three bikes in my life who have made me want to be not only a better rider, but a better, badder person:

There was Lucy, the first bike I fixed up myself, on which I learned to wrench because the local bike shop said she was barely worth the $15 I paid at a yardsale. She was an old English 3-speed, and she took me to parts of town I never knew existed, parts of myself. We rode into Boston from our town of Hingham, first riding to the bus stop, then into Quincy to take the train, then Dorchester, and finally into Cambridge, passing each milestone and not stopping, knowing the next was so close by proximity to my own strength. Why stop? It was a question I asked myself on that first ride into town at night, and then for years after. I acquired her when I was 17 or 18, rode her to school when other kids were taking their cars, rode her to friends' houses, to punk shows, and most importantly - I rode her away. If there was ever a place I didn't want to be, I had escape in the form of 2 wheels and an internal hub. I've never been a dependent person, but previously I had inline skates with their awkwardness and the necessity to take them off all the time, or a skateboard that used up so much energy for such little gain. I wore so many sets of wheels on both modes of transportation that my local skate shop started giving my swag. But with a bike, it was all so easy and simple, and there was no more train to catch, no more deadline or need for exact change. Lucy taught my so much about myself, and who I had the potential to become.

The next bike, when talking it over briefly with E., I had said was Lucy II, a 1973 Schwinn beach cruiser I had in Santa Fe who was beautiful when I needed some softness in my life, had grace and style when I felt I was all scabbed knees and ill-fitting tshirts. A bike that offered me a femininity I couldn't maintain on my own. My own devine feminine in cherry red and white washed tires. But it could have been Starla, the first new bike I purchased with my own money, a Jamis Durango I bought in Santa Fe. I question my selection between Starla and Lucy II now, because it was Starla who was with me during so many Critical Masses, so many sad break ups, who I abused with spray paint and loved with glitter, who I painted like the night sky, then like a skeleton, with whom I learned to ride up stairs during a particular bad relationship. Most of the bad things in my life happened during my time with Starla, and there she always was, sitting quiet in my room, always with me, or else cruising through the night streets of Santa Fe, a tape deck duct daped to her handlebars while we took turns too fast and crashed and laughed, and locked up and loved.

But now, of the ten-plus bikes I have in-between, and of the stable I have now in my kitchen, living room and basement, it's the one I haven't yet named, the Scale, who brings me such joy - who teaches me about my own strength, who calms my fears and gives me faith like a religion, and I believe. We cut through single track and over logs and rocks and roots. I remember to look ahead and trust her, and she always keeps rubber side down. I've had other mountain bikes, and I'm sure will have others in the future, as all things come to a closure. But the freedom, and beauty, and excitement to be alive and in the woods is unlike any other joy brought to me by those. Every bike has been preparing me for this one, so that we could ride together, eyes open and forward, tires clawing against the dirt.