~"Bicycle For Sale" but not the memories that go with it~

It's been a proven point in my life that bicycles and I just don't get along all that well together and in the world of "understatements", it's one of the greatest.  It has been what it has been.  The truth is that I've had lots of fun and ridden, dare I say thousands of miles on them over the years, but I've also had more accidents than I care to admit to while sitting atop one.

Some people said that I should have just quit with the first one and had the good sense to stay off of them.  Unfortunately I am a slow learner sometimes.

A very slow learner.

Hey, I didn't even learn to ride a bike until the summer before I went off to college.  I was from a farming family, kid #6 of 7 in all.  We didn't have extra money for things like a bike, plain and simple.  I don't recall anyone ever mentioning having a bike when I was younger and the only bike that I can remember even seeing was the little one that the chimpanzee trainer on the Ed Sullivan show had for his cute little "friends" to ride on.  Even as I grew older and went to grade school and then high school, there was never this burning desire to get a bike.

The summer of my 18th year that all changed.

The old blue bike that I learned to ride on was actually a nice Schwinn and even though it was used, it was just fine for me.  It took me a while to learn to balance it and now that I look back, I'm sure I must have looked pretty silly attempting to learn back in my hometown of Haven, Kansas.

But learn I did.

In fact I got pretty good at it pretty fast and before I knew it that summer, I had already ridden to the little town of Yoder and back.  That was about a 15 mile round trip and as I stop to think about it, that was quite a feat for me.  It was a summer of fun with my sister, nieces and best friend as we spun around town and had a great time.  The wind blew our hair as we laughed and laughed.  It was the best time ever.

That is until the accident.

In mid-July our town got a new doctor and in addition to being a great physician, we had heard that he was also very cute.  One Saturday afternoon the curiosity of 4 young teenage girls got the best of them and we found ourselves making the decision to ride by his house near the high school and see if we could find him somewhere outside.  In many ways that was a very bad decision to have made.

To make a long story short, we did find him and my first glimpse of him was as I was lying on my back, sprawled out across the front lawn of his house.  My bicycle was upside down in the street and my sister and nieces were all yelling "help" as he walked over to me.  I could tell by the huge baseball size lump on my left ankle that I was already in big trouble, brothers and sisters.

I met the doctor alright and got to know him even more as I was put into the back seat of his car while he and my brother Mike rushed me over to the hospital in Hutchinson.  The rest of the summer and even into my first two months of college, I sported the ugliest of casts that went all the way mid thigh.  It was hot and it was itchy.  It sucked to be me the rest of the summer.  Yet even in all of my misery, I vowed one thing.

I vowed that I would get back on a bike as soon as I could and I did.

Over the years that would follow I would have more accidents while riding bikes and nearly all of them would involve broken bones on the left side of my body.  In 1987 while preparing for my first BAK, I got caught up in the sand near the farm of my friend Ron's folks near Buhler, Kansas.  A quick trip to the hospital was in order.  X-rays showed a broken collar bone on the left side and the plans for my first ever ride across Kansas came to a screeching halt.  14 years later, while preparing for the BAK of 2001, I managed to hit the railroad trestle on the Martinez bike path, going about 10 mph.  Now that was painful and how I was able to ride home from that one I will never know.  By the time I made it back to my house on 14th Street, a couple of miles away, I knew that it was time to head to the emergency room once again.  I had cracked several of my left ribs, sprained both of my hands, and ended up with bruises that ran from my knees all the way to the top of my legs.  I had never seen bruises so big.  My plans for that BAK were dashed as well and it took a long time to get over the pain yet I continued to vow one thing.

I vowed that I would get back on a bike as soon as I could and I did.

I made the decision to make one last try at riding my bike across the state during the summer of 2011.  It had always seemed like an elusive dream to me, one that I still kept vying for even though my track record was pretty dismal.  In the months before the June departure that summer, I actually ended up riding well over 1,100 miles.  I felt very strong and ready to go.  I made it halfway across the state that year before heat exhaustion and dehydration caught up with me near McPherson, Kansas.  After I recuperated from that ordeal I still continued to ride.  I had learned that bicycling was a whole lot more fun than I had ever thought it would be.  Every morning I would hop on and ride for 10 miles.  It was just how the day started.

Then came August 4th.

I accept the fact that I'm probably not the most careful person who ever rode a bike and maybe I have made more than my share of last minute, crazy decisions.  I could hang my head in shame over that one but I don't.  The morning of August 4th, at the very end of my daily ride, I had a little accident.  It was an accident that would change my life forever and be the starting point of my desire to live my life every day as if it were the last one that I would ever have.  Long story short, I crashed my bike in my own front yard as I made the craziest choice that I ever have in my whole life.  I was going way too fast and missed the driveway as I neared my house.  In a split second decision, I thought to my 55-year old self.

"Why not jump the curb, Peggy?  You know, just like the 10 year olds do?  It will be fun!"

It was not.

I knew that I was in big trouble, I mean really big trouble, when I had to literally scoop my arm up off of the ground in order to hobble over to the truck to be taken to the hospital.  The curbing in front of my house was not forgiving and when the whole ordeal was over, it stood as strong and proud as it did the day that it was poured in 1936.  As for me, well I didn't.

The best surgeon in Hutchinson told me in the early hours after the accident that he didn't even know how to help me.  It was that bad.  Four surgeries, 9 months in long arm casts, and the gift of a donor's bone segment later, "old lefty" was healed.  My left arm now sports enough hardware in it that it looks like someone's tool box exploded every time I see an x-ray of it.  The doctors were able to restore my left wrist to about 50% of its original God given capacity but it would never be the same again and the truth of the matter is this.

Neither will I.

I brought my bike with me to my new life here along the Western Slopes and except for a couple of times in the very first summer, I have not ridden it at all.  Most of the time it has hung in what my friend LeRoy describes as its "slothful position" and he is right.  A bicycle that I paid nearly $800 for in the spring of 2011 just hangs there in the shed unridden.

It's amazingly in good shape and that's a miracle considering what I put it through that summer of 2011.  After the accident I took it to the local bike shop so that the mirrors could be replaced and the rest of the bike inspected for any damage.  The guys at the shop just shook their head when I told the story and they looked it over really well.  There was nothing wrong with it.  Nothing at all and for that I was glad.  It was a great bike and I loved riding it but after 4 years of having it, I have made the decision that it's time to sell it.  Why not let someone else give it a try?  Somewhere out there is probably the "just right" person for it.  Who knows?  Maybe I will find them.

Will I ever ride a bike again?  Probably.  This time however, when I choose a new bike, it will probably be a different kind.  I think I'm just looking for one to take a spin around town in and one that will still give me the chance to get some exercise.  My days of wanting to ride 300 miles a month are done but for the memories those days gave me, I am most grateful.

It's true that I broke a lot of bones in my nearly 40 years of riding but for the fun it provided me, it was worth it.  Yet even though I am getting ready to sell that bike, one thing still remains for certain.

I vow that I will get a new bike and continue to ride as much as I can in the days that remain of my life.

It's a little hard to ride a bike when it's in this position.  LeRoy was right when he referred to it as slothful.

I have only ridden a couple of times here in Colorado.  It seems a shame to just let it sit unused and so it's time to sell it.

Day 2 of the 2011 Bike Across Kansas at Scott City.  The temperature was about 100 with humidity to match.

I miss the days riding with these two dear friends of mine from back home in Reno County, Kansas.

August 6th, 2011 at the "scene of the crime" on day #3 of a gazillion days of recovery to follow.  I am sure that the indentation from my body is still apparent in the grass of that front yard.  I was so fortunate because even in as bad as it was, it could have always been so much worse.