If you know me at all, you'll know that I go through phases of rediculous obsession with things. Right now, I am currently obsessed with (the word seems a little strong, but can't thing of anything more appropriate) biking, my garden, reading, and, as always, cool pens and notebooks. My mom always teases me about the pens and notebooks, but hey... I'm an artist/graphic designer. What do you expect? And when I am obsessed with something, I like to learn all I can about it. So... today you get to hear a little bit about the bike.
Last year, Chris and I got new mountain bikes and spent a lot of time riding and finding cool places to go. We even went to Zions and biked one of the funnest trails ever (I forget the name of it!)
My first bike was a hand me down from Joel... who got it from Nate. With each hand me down, we got to paint it the color of our choice. (Can't remember my choice of color. Red? Or was that what it was when I got it from Joel?)
Da Vinci sketched an idea of a bike out in the 1400s but it never left the paper. The first bike (1800s) had no pedals. It was like a Flintstones bike. In France, they made the "velocipede" which had the pedals on the front wheel. They called it the boneshaker because it was made of wood and had metal tires and the streets were paved with cobblestones.
One of the first models of the bike was called the hobbyhorse. I found a site that showed a group of men in the army in Montana (Fort Missoula) that rode bikes. Their longest trek was 1,900 miles to St. Louis, Missouri. On bike. 1,900 miles? That's a lot of gas saved. Thus, a lot of money saved. Maybe even enough to buy my dream bike.
So anyway... living in Magna has really helped Chris and me use our bikes more often. We ride them to the track to go running, to the neighbors, scouts, Nate and Shanny's, etc.
There's a program on Trekbikes.com called One World Two Wheels that advocates riding a bike and keeping your car parked when you travel two miles or less. They say that 40% of all car trips are two miles or less.
So that's my goal. Jump on my hobbyhorse for anything less than two miles away. Except church. Nylons and a skirt on a bike is something I've already chosen to pass up. Otherwise, I'd ride to work. No thanks. Oh... and an FYI to any Magnitas wanting to ride their bike to the store: Smith's has no bike rack. I found that out the other day.
These are my dream bikes. Dream because they are $3,500+. Like I said, you've gotta save a lot of gas for that.
drool
5 comments:
Just so you know, when that bike got down the line to me, I painted it pink with purple speckles. I think that was mom's idea.
You are too funny! I'm glad you're saving our planet one bike ride at a time. I'd join you, but I haven't mastered balancing two kids on my head yet. Maybe next week :-)
I think it was black for joel so you must have had it when it was red. Then it went back to black for me. Deidre thinks its funny that we all had the same bike. I had to explain to her how the cycle worked where nate or joel would get a new one and that would be the time for us to rotate to the next size up. She thought that was funny. By the way, this is jesse.
Just remembered, it was black with green speckles when I had it.
What?!?! Nate rode a bike? He told me he could not ride a bike. So now I really need him to ride. By the way I loved the history of the bike. Maybe when you get your new bike you can hand yours down to me (wink, wink)
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