Biking Adventures

 NOTE:  Our grandson Jeremy Nichols is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Everett, Washington, area.  He recently wrote that he had been transferred to an area where the missionaries ride bikes to their appointments, etc. instead of being assigned a car.

His letter brought back memories of our own Nichols Family biking experiences, so I decided to send him a short little treatise of our experiences long ago in the 70's when biking first became more of a sport in Colorado than an occasional bike ride for fun.) 

Hi, Elder Nichols--

 I read your email a couple of weeks ago with interest because bicycles played such a big part in the life of the Nichols Family during our early years.  This was before your dad was born and we lived in other parts of the world.

 

When Grandpa Ross and I moved to our first house, Harold was not quite two years old and Brice was just one week old.  Not long after we got there, my parents came to visit and brought all my stuff from the home where I grew up in Rawlins, Wyoming.  Dolls.  Toys.  Fancy dresses.  Scrapbooks. School memorabilia.  The desk my dad made for me out in his garage workshop.  And the heavy metal bike I got from Santa Claus when I was in the third grade--a very coveted Hiawatha.  Oh, that was a cherished possession!  It meant that I could go farther afield than just walking to school and around the neighborhood.

 

However, when I saw that bicycle in the back of my dad's truck that summer day at my new house, I couldn't help but ask what in the world was I supposed to do with it?  My mother wisely replied that it just might come in handy if I wanted to take my little boys around the neighborhood for a ride.

 

So, the next summer Grandpa Ross and I splurged and purchased a new 10-speed bike for him and two bike seats for the kids.  By this time Brice was big enough to sit up and handle himself in the bike seat behind me.  Harold was heavier, so he rode on the back of Grandpa Ross' bike.

 

That began a real adventure for our little family.  Every Saturday the four of us would go on a bike ride.  First to the nearby park, and then, as the weeks went by, up to the train tracks, then later we ventured up Highway 72 into Coal Creek Canyon to Plainview.  That was a long, hard trip on my heavy bike with a kid on the back.  Grandpa Ross would bike ahead of me and circle back over and over as I slowly went up those steep hills.  (I thought he was the BEST biker in the world—until I got my own 10-speed bike a few years later and found out it was all in the bike's weight and the gears!)  Then to assuage Grandpa Ross' desire to bike on Sunday, we began biking to our chapel which was down in Golden and quite a long way from our house in Arvada.  

 

As the years went by, Harold and Brice learned to ride their own bikes, and Burgandy and Jeremy then occupied the child seats on the back of the bikes.    And because we didn't have a second car, that was still our family's main mode of transportation.  We either walked or rode our bikes—or didn't go.  To Church (our chapel was then quite a bit closer), to piano lessons, to soccer practice, and just for fun.

 

It wasn't always easy to bundle up little kids into snowsuits and bike in the cold—and sometimes snowy weather.  I rode a skirt when I went to Relief Society and we biked to Church, which people thought was really odd.  But when we lived in Europe and saw women all over riding bikes wearing skirts, I realized I had just been living in the wrong country all those years!  

 

People would stop us and remark how fun it would be to ride bikes like that everywhere we went. " Oh, how lucky the Nichols Family is!" is what they used to say.

 

And I would think, "Right.  We are sooooo lucky to HAVE to ride bikes most of the places we want to go."  And I thought of all the effort those people never had any idea was part of that fun-looking "adventure" they saw.

 

Eventually we moved to Virginia where your dad was born, and the family biking experience pretty much came to an end.  But, as time went on, I finally realized that riding bikes all those years was a blessing of health, endurance, adaptability, and, yes, pleasure at being outdoors and not stuffed into a car all the time.

 

Thanks for sharing your biking experiences.  On the days you would rather NOT ride a bike if you had a choice, think about all the treasures that assignment/activity has already brought to you, and give thanks for your healthy body and your bike that gets you where you need to go!

Love, Momma G