Personal Bike History Part 2 – Adolescence/College

Some time in middle school I saw “Breaking Away.” I loved it and my thoughts turned to road cycling. Also around this time I remember seeing a television commercial for the Huffy Windsprint road bike. It was innovative because it had 12 speeds! Being a Huffy, I knew it was affordable, so my Mom bought one for me. I loved how fast it was. I wore a painter’s cap with a Norwegian flag on it as I pretended to race around on the streets. I didn’t know then if there were any great Norwegian road racers, (of course, I am a fan of Thor Hushovd now!) but I suspected there might be. I never really went far in reality, but in my imagination I was a great rider.

I still had the Windsprint in high school. I lived just close enough to the school to not be eligible for bus transportation, so I rode to school. I attached a Pletscher rack to carry my trumpet in its case and I wore a backpack with my books in it. I liked the speed with which I could transport myself to school, but I didn’t like how sweaty I was when I arrived. High school boys can get pretty sweaty.

In the early 1990s, I spent a summer working at a summer camp. This camp was pretty well-financed and had a lot of expensive activities. In the summer I was there, they decided to add the relatively new sport of mountain biking to their offerings. The camp bought a fleet of fully-rigid Giants. I took one for a quick test tide and I still remember the experience. The low gearing and knobby tires made off-road riding so enjoyable. I didn’t become a mountain biker right away, but the seeds were planted in my mind right then.

I don’t remember the make or model of my next bike. I’m not even entirely sure that I remember what color it was (I think it was silver). I do know that it was a drop bar 10 or 12-speed and that it probably had stem shifters and turkey levers. It belonged to my late grandfather before I acquired it. He had died in early 1984. I saw it hanging in my Grandmother’s basement during a visit and I asked her if I could have it. I was attending a large public university at the time and the campus was quite big and it often took some time to get from one building to another. I thought I could reduce the number if times that I was late for class by riding. It worked brilliantly! Not only was I on time for more classes, but I could also sleep a little later in the mornings (sleep being a precious commodity in college).

I rode that bike all through the spring semester and I grew quite fond of it, despite the fact that I treated it so poorly (it was left outside and chained to bike racks in all sorts of weather).

I also am guilty of terrorizing more than a few innocent pedestrians on that campus. I guess I still had a child’s view of cycling at that time – I still rode on sidewalks most of the time and scared the hell out of many unsuspecting students walking to class. At least this was in the pre-iPod days and there was some chance of hearing me coming before I passed.

In the summer following that semester, I decided to stay on campus and work for the school. I was given a room in a dormitory for the summer and I continued to use the bike for transportation. It never occurred to me to ride out of the small town in which my university was located. I just didn’t think that such a thing was possible (or safe).

I regret greatly what happened next. The summer ended and it was time to move back to my regular dorm room in another part of campus. I moved all of my stuff, but I left the bike chained up in a storage area. I thought I could go back and get it whenever. When I did go back (a few weeks or so into the fall semester), it was gone. I heard that the maintenance people probably removed it for the start of the new term. I’m sure that I could have tracked it down, but I never did. I was pretty busy and I guess I never found the time.

I guess a common theme among all of the bikes in my life up to this point is that I don’t know what happened to them when my time with them was over. I hope that they ended up with someone who would use them, for I am sure that they all had some life left in them.