May was National Bike Month, which we celebrated here in Massachusetts with the Bay State Bike Week from May 11^th to May 17^th.  We Bostonians were encouraged to ride our bikes to work during bike week, which, in my eyes, is a laughable proposition to anyone who values a long and happy life.  My usually commute to work and school involves a 45 minute ride on the Boston Mass Transit system, but with the MBTA threatening fare hikes and service cuts, I decided to take my chances on two wheels this year.  I might need to get used to doing this regularly. 

For those of you who are fortunate enough to have never experienced the horrors of driving in Boston, consider yourself lucky.  The roads are poorly paved, street signs and lane lines are largely optional, and defensive driving is considered a weakness.  Wolves pick off the sick and the lame.  Fortunately, you get to experience all this while “safely” encapsulated in your own private traveling cocoon, comfortably seated within reach of a cup holder and with access to your favorite music.  I don’t know about you, but when I cut across two lanes of traffic to make a sharp right hand turn without using my turn signals, I like to listen to Beastie Boys full blast.  Or talk on my cell phone.  It’s all a matter of personal preference, really.

Biking in this environment is practically suicidal.  Without the illusionary safety of an automotive interior, you’re suddenly painfully aware of how dangerous the streets of Boston really are and how fragile life can be.  On my very first morning commute I had to swerve into traffic to avoid a parked car door that swung open ten feet in front of me.  This put me within inches of the grill of a massive truck, which the driver helpfully pointed out to me by laying on the horn.  The deep rumbling blast of the horn shocked me so much that I nearly lost control of my bike as I tried to maintain my balance over a patch of cracked, broken pavement.  “This is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever done,” I thought.  But you know what would be even stupider?  Coming to a complete stop amid the fury and chaos of commuter traffic so you can whip out your camera and photo-document your commute.   That would be crazy.  (Photo post coming soon!)

Whenever I tell my loved ones that I’d like to own a motorcycle one day, they reel back and horror and tell me how dangerous motorcycles are.  “You’re too young to die!” they cry.  These are the same loved ones who are applauding my decision to ride my bike to work this summer.   “It’s good for the planet and good exercise, too!”  Oh, if only they knew.

Boston, which is easily one of our nation’s least cycling-friendly cities, finally installed some bike lanes on select streets at the end of 2008, but traffic enforcement and driver education are lagging behind the new physical infrastructure.  Surprised?  Not me.  As I previously mentioned, Boston drivers are still trying to figure out the turn signal, which became a standard feature on automobiles in 1939.

 One of Boston's new bike lanes

My bike is a blue ten-speed Brittany Free Spirit that belonged by my father and my mother’s father before him.  The Free Spirit was the generic off-the-rack bike sold by Sears, and back in the 1960s and 70s practically half of small town America was riding them.  My grandfather was the first person to try to teach me to ride a bike, and this Free Spirit is the bike he tried to teach me on.  It wasn’t an ideal bike for a kid to learn on: it was adult-sized, had no training wheels, and even with the seat down as far as it could go it was still a long way from my feet to the ground.  Everyone on his street pointed this out to him, but I was the first grandchild and he was excited to execute his grandfatherly duties.  He died when I was in the third grade, and the bike, which apparently had no sentimental value to my mom or my six aunts and uncles, ended up with my father.  It was a purely utilitarian acquisition: he needed a bike and the bike was newly without an owner.  It was my father’s bike for over a decade, until he got a great deal on a new mountain bike right around the time my bike was stolen outside my college dorm.  Now, for the past decade, it’s been mine.

Even so, I still call it my grandfather’s bike, despite the fact that it is now a very different bike than the one he tried to teach me on twenty years ago.  My father installed drop handlebars, and I’ve since replaced them with even newer drop handlebars.  Between my father and I we’ve also replaced the hand brakes (twice), the brake calipers, the brake cables, the brake pads, the rear derailleur, the chain, the seat post, the seat (thrice), the tires, removed the spoke reflectors, the water bottle holder, and the horn, installed a new click shifter system, and I put in a collapsible rear wire basket that seemed like a good idea at the time, though I’ve only used it once or twice.  The blue frame, however, still serves as a link between me and my dead ancestor.  This bike is very precious to me.

So it’s probably foolish that I use my dead grandfather’s bike to taunt death.  I doubt he’d want his old bicycle to be an accessory to our premature reunion.  But, as I’ve recently been learning, there’s a very fine line between a Free Spirit and literally setting your spirit free.

To be continued…