It's better on a bike

AR is thinking about riding her bike to work. I can't tell you how happy this makes me. I won't even get into how mad she was when I got her the bike for her birthday five years ago when what she really wanted was a Dreamcast, (not that she ever once said she wanted a Dreamcast, and when I asked her if she wanted a bike she said, yeah, she'd like that, but i'm not getting into it.)

I love riding my bike. Love it, love it, love it. I like biking around the neighborhood with The Boy on the back; I like biking on long, empty roads that wind around hay fields; I like biking to the grocery store and to a friend's house and to our favorite pub. Anna likes playing golf. She also likes playing softball and basketball, and while I am pretty athletic (three varsity sports in high school, thank you very much) I cannot do a layup. Or throw a ball straight. Or bring myself to care about a hitting a little white ball with a stick 18 times, (or in my case 72 times, which sounds pretty good until I tell you it was for 6 holes.)

So much for sharing hobbies.

But if AR starts biking to work, that could lead to weekend rides, and if we start biking together on weekends, maybe we could work up to doing one of those bike tours, like the ones in Italy where you bike and then eat and the sleep and then bike and then eat again.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, because while it pleases me that she's taking an interest in biking, the sight of AR on a bike actually terrifies me. Imagine a stork learning to drive a manual transmission on the Autobahn and you'll get a sense of what I'm talking about. Bless her heart.

It doesn't help that the bike has old-school down-bar shifters that require a little coordination and finesse - qualities she does not possess in great quantities, bless her heart. It's fairly flat here in Portland, so I think she can get away with leaving the thing in one gear until she gets the hang of it, and there's a nice big parking lot at the Catholic school three blocks from our house where she can practice on the weekends. Is it wrong that I'm thinking about training wheels?

Seriously, bless her heart. The bike is in the shop now, getting a much-needed tune up, but it's only a matter of time before she hits the streets. Please include her in your prayers. I will keep you posted as this story develops.