From a boy in Sopchoppy, it has been a life upon a bicycle. Until I got the first cycle to call my own, I rode my sisters blue Huffy, even back then knowing I did not like riding with that top tube missing, but Robert was not judging, we just had to ride, and so we did all over Sopchoppy,taking our toys downtown to try and sell.
With my own Western Flyer bicycle with the top tube and the push button horn in the faux gas tank,that blue bike took me all over Monticello, canvases in tow going across town to Mrs Groves house for art lessons, to Marks house where I first learned there were other teams out there beside Florida State Seminoles and Fred, namely a Steve and some Florida Gators. From then on, it was a fight as to who would play Steve.
By the time we moved to Wilmore, Kentucky, I had outgrown the little blue bike. The first Christmas in wonderful Wilmore, with snow upon the ground, there beside the tree that morning in our duplex, was a Western Auto gold stingray, with white banana seat, three speed stick shifter on the down tube. I was elated and could not wait for the ice to melt to ride over to Stuart and Steve's up the hill by the Asbury college golf course. Many a day chasing Joker and Penguin on that Bat bike.
The bike came to Williston in 1967 when we moved back to Florida. The banana seat was handy for carrying Rebecca to the movie, one of my first bicycle dates. It took me to Chips, to Terry's, to Randy's, to school up the street. It was replaced by a three-speed brown Schwinn English style bike. This was the days of Thoreau and journals and the life of quiet isolation, and the bicycle took me, not so much any longer with friends along, but out into the lanes and back ways in my quiet contemplation.
There was another friend in town I did not so much ride with, but he too lived a life upon a bike. Bruce was the son of the local sign painter, Milo, whose motto was, "we made signs before we could talk." And while Mr Milo was about his signing, Bruce and I were playing tennis mostly in those later years in Williston.
I was about to start driving the blue fastback Volkswagen and moving beyond the cycling years.
The brown three-speed was relegated to storage.
Moving to Lake City after college, several years into the running road races, my friends Buddy,Steve,Mike and Forest began training for the new sport of triathlon. It was then I took the blue 10 speed Schwinn out that was my sisters, who never rode, with the baby killer shifters on the stem, and began attempting to ride along on their training rides. It was soon evident girl Schwinn's would not cut it. I gave up the riding and returned to running.
It was soon after Bob acquired a Schwinn chrome-moly steel racing bike with the shifters on the down tube. It was a thing of gaudy beauty with its lilac girlish colors. What were you thinking Bob? Well, we had a common friend, Roger, who also had one of these fancy racers, a red Vitus. It was then that they accompanied me to Gator Cycle in Gainesville where I purchased a yellow Cannondale. I could now call myself a cyclist again. With this new found Thoreau-like freedom, we rode far. We rode to Live Oak to the Boys Ranch to swim in the Suwannee. We rode to Monicac, Georgia just to see the pretty lady. And so we rode and we rode. The Cannondale was sold to a lady friend and I purchased a Basso from a college student leaving UF. It was a beauty, with the Campy gruppo. It was a sad day when it was stolen, along with the Schwinn bike Roger had given Melanie, my wife for a wedding present.
With another biker friend Rick, who was my insurance agent, he was able, with knowledge of bicycles of course, to secure for me, at replacement value, in 1991, from Colorado Cyclist, another Basso bike. The Basso Gap, with the Campy gruppo, of which I continue to ride.
It was one of the saddest days ever when we learned Roger had gone on beyond, leaving his Klein and many other assorted Vitus, Trek and Schwinn bikes behind. Growing myself too slow to ride with my faster friends, with Roger gone, I rode much less. It was a special moment indeed when Liz his daughter offered me Rogers old red Trek Mountain bike. With a blue and purple frame Roger had given me years earlier, I took the two bikes down to our bike shop friend Harry and he wedded the two, making one bike. Shaun called it the Frankenbike.
And so Sunday, as I stood in First Baptist and admired Bruces red Huffy bike, I thought back to all the miles, all the friends, all the rides, and I at once wanted to ride. It did not matter if it was on the expensive Italian Basso or on the lowly Huffy. With friends in the head wind, to draft behind, or to help them, making tail winds for them, there were lessons they all taught me, lessons I shall carry, way, way again I trust up to that pretty girl, with friends, with memories carrying us along, to make the seventy mile trip that once seemed so very far alone, but a short jaunt to Taylor and then on into those Georgia pine woods to Moniac.
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