My bike, dogs, and me...

I am an avid bike rider. However, I am very old school. I mean really old school. I ride a baby blue beach cruiser with coaster brakes (thank you very much), and I ride it around the neighborhood all the time. So much so that people have started to recognize me as that woman who's always pedaling down the street. In fact, recently I ran into the university provost (not while on my bike--on campus), and he recognized me as, again, the woman who is always riding around the neighborhood (I didn't know he lived close by, but now maybe I should take better care not to wear unprofessional sweats while riding--I wonder if Ann Taylor makes any suits that double as sportswear?). He then reminisced about his own beach cruiser, stating that my bike looks just like one he had when he was twelve. I wasn't sure whether that was supposed to be a compliment, a simple observation, or something that should make me feel like a total dweeb (in a sort of "nobody's ridden those kinds of bikes on the street since 1956! Get with the program!" kind of way), so I just laughed good naturedly.

Anyway, I love my bike. It's retro, and it's pretty. But I don't ride it because it's retro or because I'm trying to start some kind trend, because believe me, if it ain't caught in the last four years, it ain't happenin'. I ride it because when you ride a plain beach cruiser you are really riding. There's no mediation of different speeds to "help" you avoid the strain of going up a hill--it's just you and the simple mechanics of the bike. I never caught onto dealing with ten-speeds anyway--I had one when I was twelve, with the upside down handle bars and all that, but I proceeded to ride it as a regular bicycle. I guess I'll never be a convert to the ten speed, which is rather odd because I really am a fan of mechanical progress and ingenuity.

I didn't even get the hang of riding a bike until I was 8. There were several awkward years between age 3 (when it's still marginally ok to ride a trike) and 8 (when training wheels can destroy your social life) where I spent most of my time frustrated that I just couldn't "get it". Getting the right balance was just too hard. But when I did finally graduate to a two-wheeler, it was like magic, and I've been hooked ever since.

But, one of the main points of this blog post is to talk about the bizarre relationship that the neighborhood dogs, my bike, and I share. Let me put it this way: dogs hate people riding beach cruisers in their territory. I have been chased (and caught!) by a chihuahua, who attached him/herself to my pantleg with his/her teeth, run down by at least two rogue weenie-dogs, and given what my mom would call "mean-eyes" by most of the other K-9's around these parts. Little dogs seem to have the most contempt for my bike and I, and they also possess the most ironic confidence that they are going to somehow not come out the worse for wear if they happen to get tangled up in the spokes. Then there are the dogs who threaten me from their yards—I’m pretty sure they’ve been trained by their masters not to leave the premises, so their m.o. is to, when they see me coming by, run to the edge of the yard, barking what I’m sure are epithets in doggie language at the top of their lungs. They amuse me—it’s kind of like they’re saying, “Boy, if I could catch up to you I’d make you wish you were never born! But mommy and daddy won’t let me leave the yard…” I actually do love dogs. But this particular widespread anti-bicycle pathology of theirs bears some real psychological analysis.

Cats on the other hand, are blasé. They couldn’t care less if I rode through the neighborhood in a tanker truck blaring threats to paintball the houses and t.p. all the trees. I guess that’s because they don’t feel “owned” by anyone particular, so they don’t feel the need to protect anyone’s property. In fact, in their egotistical little minds, they are probably convinced that I, my bike, and the air I breathe are part of their world, in which they begrudgingly allow me to make an idiot of myself by riding the same routes day after day, never branching out to seek different scenery.

Squirrels…God, they’re another story entirely. But I’ll end here for now.