I think they're finally ready for the black tight shorts

Chris has been riding bikes for years. We came into this relationship with a bike a piece, and now we have about eight total.

Chris got into mountain bike racing a few years ago and needed an upgrade. Moving to real mountain country required a third upgrade. He now also owns two road bikes (one was a hand me down from his brother) to keep him in better shape for his racing.

Our wedding gift to each other was a tandem. (We heard that it was great for a relationship because you were literally stuck together on them therefore having deeper and more meaningful "discussions.") It's great except that when you add a Burley, the rig gets a bit long.

Last fall, I gave up my circa 1987 steel "mountain" bike (that is heavier than our tandem) and bought myself my own road bike. It's been a slow learning curve, but I truly love having my own. I have mastered the clip pedals and can even turn my head, to watch for traffic, without falling over.

We take the kids on rides, occasionally. Harrison on the tag-along and Ella in the Burley. Usually, however, Chris and I ride separately for exercise. A few times we've hired a sitter so that we could ride together, but not nearly as much as we would like.

You'd think with all the bicycle enthusiasm around here that the kids would be little biking machines, but alas they are products of us. Their athleticism is doomed to be mediocre to non-existant until they are older. Ella is quite content on the small tricycle we bought Harry when he was two, and Harrison has shown zero interest in donning a bike that doesn't have four wheels.

During the Tour de France, the Outdoor Life Network coverage was broadcast for hours in our house. The kids knew that Lance had retired and that Floyd was the man of the hour. It was fun to see their sincere excitement about the bike race - although they usually could only handle it in five minute increments.

With Chris in his cast since July, biking has not been a main attraction around here, but obviously it's still on their minds....



Ella (to me and Harrison): Hey – we never got to go on a bike ride yesterday. (We were going to try a family ride, but I was pretty nervous about Chris attempting to ride with his cast.)

Harrison: Do you want to do a pretend Tour day France in the driveway with our bikes?

Ella: Sure. What number do you want to be?

Harrison: Ten

Ella: I want to be twelve.


Chris, we may have some racers in our future yet!