Rainy days like today always make me a little nostalgic. I have no idea why, because my life is great in every way. I think it must have something to do with having me slow down and think about things, hop off the hamster-wheel and smell the roses. It’s days like today that remind me of riding my bike home from school in the rain, getting into dry, warm clothes and huddling in the kitchen eating lunch with my brother. The more nostalgic I get about things I remember, the more vividly it becomes apparent how much a bicycle has featured in my life.
When I was almost 5, we lived in a very rural neighborhood in a mining town in South Africa. Most of the roads were not paved. My neighbors had kids about our age, and the little boy had a bike. One day, he wheeled it over to me and told me I should try it. I jumped on and pedaled off around the block. I had never seen training wheels before, and so didn’t know you were supposed to start with training wheels. I think I already had it in my head those days that if a boy could do it, so could I. People who know me well know that hasn’t changed!
My first bike arrived a little while after that. I suppose my parents realized that I couldn’t ride the neighbor’s bike all the time, and since they didn’t even have to teach me how to ride, it was a pretty simple process. For some reason completely beyond my comprehension, they bought me a full size adult bike with flat bars. I guess we’d call it a hybrid today. Not being a person of large proportions now, you can imagine that at age 5, I was a pip-squeak. There was no way I could sit on the seat and reach the pedals. The bike was just too big. So I devised this method of getting around that must have been comical to anyone watching, because I WAS going to ride my bike! I’d hop off the seat into the middle of the bike (no cross-bar), pedal like crazy to get some speed, and then launch myself off the pedals back onto the seat and coast for a bit. In those days we didn’t wear helmets, no-one had ever taught me the rules of the road, and I rode on dirt. At age 5. To the public pool and back. Crazy!!
I had that bike until I was 14, and I loved it. It was a symbol of freedom and independence, and I learned to clean it, and grease the chain, and change a flat tire. Shortly into my first year of high school, my precious blue bike got stolen. It was terrible, and I was devastated. It didn’t take long after the whining and pleading started for my parents to produce another bike for me. This one was a racing bike! But it was pink. I couldn’t believe they’d bought me a pink bike. I was a tough, independent athletic girl, now I had a pink bike. I made up my mind it was going to be the most well-traveled pink bike ever, and I think that might well have been the case by the time I sold it. Through high school, I rode that bike to and from school, to the pool for swimming practice, to gymnastics and ballet lessons, to track and field practice, and to my friend’s houses. I was fearless, lifting friends on my handlebars, cutting through the field behind my house, come rain or shine. Adults that I went to school with, but didn't know well, still say "Hey! You're the girl that rode that pink racer!"
My pink bike was sold at age 23, and I bought my first rigid fork mountainbike. After all, ramping sidewalks and cutting through tracks was a lot tougher on skinny tires, and I wanted to explore the dirt some more. I had a blast on that bike, and began riding off-road with a group of guys that I met through work. I discovered the nature of the mountainbiker, and decided this was where I belonged. A year later, my bike was stolen outside the gym. This time it was insured (mom and dad weren’t going to keep replacing my bikes!) and with the insurance payout, I bought my first real front-suspension mountainbike. Fantastic! I could go over things I’d never dreamed of before! My group of off-road friends was expanding, and we began taking weekend camping trips to explore the African bush on our bikes. It was the most fun you can have on a bike. Possibly. I remember once being chased by an elephant. There were three of us ahead of the group up this dirt road, and up ahead an elephant was standing chomping and minding his own business. He turned, flapped his ears at us, and we flipped those bikes around as fast as we could as he came hurrying and trumpeting down the road behind us. We rode like the wind!
At age 27 I decided to come to the USA. I had been subscibing to US mountainbiking magazines, and I wanted to ride the trails. I sold everything I owned, put some books and precious items in boxes into storage, and arrived in the USA with a suitcase and my bike. I’d been here before on a 6 week vacation, so I settled in pretty well. I didn’t own a car, so I rode my bike everywhere. About 4 months after arriving in the country, I was knocked down by a car. My bike was hurt more than I was, and with the check I got from the insurance company, I bought my first Gary Fisher Full Suspension Sugar 3 mountainbike. Oh my gosh. This was the Holy Grail of bikes!! I fixed up my old bike and sold it for $50. It was about this time that I entered my first race. I was hooked.
I raced mountainbikes for the next 2 years, making friends with a bunch of local guys at the trails in South Florida. After returning from Vail, and talking to the pro’s racing in the 2001 World Mountainbike Champs, I decided that if I wanted to be at all competitive, I had to get one of those skinny-tired road bikes. Bleh. Roadies! So in 2002, I purchased my first real road bike. It was a used bright yellow Team mobile Giant compact. I showed up for my first group road ride, and was dropped within 20 minutes. Well, if a boy can do it, I can do it, right? Right!!! It took me 6 months and I was hanging with the big dogs. By my fingernails, but I was hanging! So I began to race crits. What a rush! Mountainbike racing and crit racing have a lot in common, and they crossed over really well. A year later I traded my aluminum Giant road bike for a carbon one, and upgraded my mountainbike for the second time since the Sugar.
At 35, in 2007, I moved to Greenville. I had just competed in the Cape Epic mountainbike stage race with my brother (most incredible thing I’ve ever done in my life) and so had spent very little time on my road bike. That was to change rather quickly. It didn’t take me long for me and the bike to gravitate towards road riding again. Here I am, 4 years later, and it’s still all about the bike.
As I look back over my adventures with all my bikes, I realize that at last my bikes and I have found a home. I’m happy here, and I know they are. They tell me all the time. I speak bike. A large part of this feeling of belonging has been as a direct result of Team Headstrong. I believe there’s a reason why people come into your life, and it’s clear that this group of people provides support, guidance, advice, comfort and love. Know who else does that? A family. This is my other family, and I’m so pleased to be part of this tribe.
Let’s ride!!
