Bicycle Fixation Weblog
[Previous entry: "Tale of One City"] [Next entry: "First Rain"]
10/13/2009: "Fathers and Sons"
My son called last night, full of enthusiasm because his mail-order fixie had just arrived; and, he said, "You are cordially invited to come over and help me put it together."That was an invitation I was most happy to accept! With gina up in Portland visiting family and taking care of a little Bicycle Fixation business, the evenings are pretty quiet here, and I was just getting ready to go out for a walk in the neighborhood. It's a great neighborhood for walking (it's rated a "Walker' sparadise" in Walkscore), but it was better yet to get on the bike and ride east under a rich, gray night and hang out with the kid.
Even better was his desire to do as much of the work himself, with me as a consultant, as it were.
We got the "Mercier" Kilo TT together quickly--not bad, though the wheels were out of true a little--and then he test rode it by riding along part of my way home. Practicing skids as he went.... Ah, fashion.
But he's riding, he's riding more and more each month, and his friends, who grew up with more conventional upbringings than he did, are also riding more and more each month. His mom reports he's even talking about the advantages of not having to drag a car along to lots of places! (With luck his friends will infect their parents with the bug...!)
And he's been doing the intermodal boogie with the Metro trains, which he was way too hip for a few years back.
Hope for the future, hope for the future, my friends. And fun for the present! I think we'll be able to take some longer rides together soon.
Of course, they'll have to start in the afternoon....
