My View: Tales from the bike trail

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September 7, 2010

My View Les Awrach The Salem News Tue Sep 07, 2010, 12:02 AM EDT

Driving along one Saturday morning a few years back, I stopped at a yard sale in Lynnfield.

There, staring me in the face, was an older, red Savoy bicycle, with half-filled tires, rusty wheels, a dusty and worn frame and almost-broken brake cable. It took me about a minute to buy it for 10 bucks.

It's a 15-speed mountain bike, but the mountain bike tires were too much to take, so I converted it into a road bike by putting some new, smooth-tread tires on it and a new brake cable to boot.

That was the beginning of my new adventure. Now I ride it often. The bike has over 200 miles on it since my purchase.

I can get from my home in West Peabody to Peabody Square in about 45 minutes. It's about a 12-mile round trip.

I've fallen down only once on this ride at the beginning of a crosswalk. It was more embarrassing than anything. I think some motorists saw me fall, but they were gracious enough not to make any comments.

That red bike would not be the last one I owned. I went on the Internet where I found another prize — a beautiful blue and shiny, 10-speed Columbia in good shape.

I wanted more variety in the places I rode, so one day I hastily loaded the Columbia into the trunk of my car and was off to Lynn Beach. From there, I sped across the causeway to Nahant, riding the entire length of the tiny town.

My next acquisition was a 21-speed, brand-new Realm mountain bike. It's very heavy, but the exercise it can give you is well worth its weight of about 40 pounds.

Here's a good one: While riding my Columbia late one afternoon in my own neighborhood I see off in the distance another two-wheeled bike lying on the sidewalk.

It looked real dusty and rusty, worse even than that first red bike of mine. There was a note: "Free bike."

It looked worthless, but in fact it was a Nishiki 10-speed, about 20 years old by my figuring. It was a bigger bike than I'd ever ridden before with a 27-inch wheel. I wondered whether I'd even be able to mount it.

"I might as well take it anyway," I thought to myself. "I could always dump it later."

It was only half a mile back to my house, and the only way of getting it home was to walk the two bikes — the one on the sidewalk and the one I came with — back to my garage.

That Nishiki bike turned out to be as good as new. It really is too big for me, but I still ride it faithfully.

Well, my friends, when my wife first saw the blue Nishiki that night in a garage already cluttered with other old bikes, the lawn mower, snowblower and other junk, she wasn't too pleased.

I cleaned up the Nishiki right down to the gears, brakes, chain, etc. I felt bad having to switch the worn whitewall tires with new ones.

But the new tires cost only about $12 apiece and proved to be well worth the expense. It's a lighter and faster bike now, but rough to ride because of the narrow tires and without the suspension of a mountain bike.

One unpleasant aspect of riding is when some younger motorists yells out disparaging comments and even on occasion throws a light object, like wet paper, at me. I don't think they realize the distracting danger it creates.

I enjoy repairing bicycles and have come to find tire-changing no big deal.

Biking is great exercise. But being older and wiser, I find safety precautions like wearing a helmet, of critical importance. I would also recommend sticking to the bike paths. The only street riding I do is on small neighborhood streets.

I subscribe to a bicycling magazine where I find lots of interesting things about bike trails, repairing bikes, contests and pictures of the new bikes out there, some of which can run to several thousand dollars in price.

I think I'll stick with ones I've found in yards and at the side of the road.

• • •

Les Awrach is a freelance writer who lives in West Peabody.

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