Owen is five. He is a strong, husky, generous five. He has been riding 2 wheels since around age 2. (Thank you to the adjustable handle on the Razor scooter..) So I believe it was a little after Max was born (about a year ago) that we ventured on our first family bike ride, meaning everyone but the baby had their own set of wheels. Before this, Owen used to ride in a child carrier mounted in the back of Chris’ bike. Micah (now 7, soon to be 8) was our craziest, swerviest, most unpredictable cyclist. No one ever wanted to ride anywhere near him. He just has this really noncommittal, easy going, carefree approach to directing his operation. It’s as though he is the only person in the world on a bike and the out stretched road before him is a canvas that he wishes to FILL with tire marks. Chris and I usually determine who of us will lead and who will bring up the rear. I’m usually in the rear. Once, on our local rail road bed turned bike trail I watched Micah really casually drift over in front of Chris and run him right off the edge and into a field of high grass. I was probably 20 yards behind when I watched Chris and Owen (3 years old at the time) bite it into the sunny little meadow. I let out one of those uncontrolled “where did that sound come from” kind of screams…and being far enough away that I still had to pedal quite a bit before I could be of any help, it was definitely one of my more awkward biking moments. Thankfully everyone was ok, just a little shaken up. And Micah got to see first hand what exactly it was that we were talking about when we mentioned his wreck less driving and why it is important to try to hold your handle bars steady. All that being said…it is 2 years later and not much has changed…except that Owen now has his own two wheels to navigate.

We recently returned from a trip to Florida to visit my mother and father in law. Riding bike in Florida, when you haven’t been able to ride bike in the north east all winter can be quite heavenly. By way of my husbands occupational skills, he was able to do a small job and trade my father in law some drywall work for his old recumbent bike that I fell in love with the moment I began pedaling. It remedied my least favorite factor of bike riding for me…the strain on my lower back…which sends tension into my neck which builds up and accumulates along with all the other tesion and stress that I like to wear like an all encompassing body armor and then basically paralyzes me for a few days out of the year (and that is where my kind, gentle, soft spoken chiropractor comes in). The recumbent puts me in this really relaxed, more aware of my surroundings state of mind. So when my father in law said he wanted to sell it and that he doesn’t ride it I wispered to Chris “I want that.” Plus, I feel kinda gansta when I ride it. There is some kind of irony about feeling gansta while riding a bicycle in Birkenstocks and a skirt that I believe I need more of in my life. I asked Chris what he would do if we got this bike home and suddenly there was no grocery money because I started sinking all the funds into trickin out my new wheels. Flashy rims, gold handle bars with studs, leather seat, little side mirrors, an air freshener. It wouldn’t be my first intervention.

Our return to Pennsylvania certainly didn’t present us with bike riding weather, especially not after being spoiled with Florida sunshine. Florida really has a way of ruining Pennsylvania for me. When we got home to Lebanon, it felt like someone had suddenly thrown garbage everywhere and turned off the lights. So much litter. So overcast. 😔

Thursday evening, it had been in the 60’s all day. The kids were already on their bikes out front, begging Chris to go on a bike ride. He hesitantly agrees. It’s 6:50, and thanks to daylight savings…people with five kids get to live under the illusion that they can still do stuff with their kids who are all actually as tired as they would be at 7:50…their freakin bedtime! I’m holding Max, who keeps crawling over to the glass window on the front door to see what’s going on. I mention maybe going along (that recumbent is just calling my gansta name “Autumn! ️️Autumn Louise Krouse! Let’s roll!”) if it’s not too much trouble to hook up the bike carriage for Max. He obliges.

All of our bike rides start the same. Chris gets out the air pump and his tools and tweaks every one of our children’s second hand bikes. It is 7:10 by the time we start scooting thru parking lots, headed to the south-er side of town…wide open streets…no traffic. I hang back to enjoy a little breather from the dinner madness with five kids and to keep an eye on the rear. We aren’t thru the second parking lot when kids lose formation and one emerges on one side of some parked cars while another is zipping from the other side and we almost lose Iris and Micah…right outta the gates.

“COME ON GUYS! YOU HAVE TO WATCH OUT FOR EACHOTHER!”, shouts their gangsta motha.

We make it to some wide open streets and the kids are mostly staying in line. I begin to think its a little cold. We are all bundled up, but when the sun, who clearly doesn’t care what we do to our clocks…starts fully dissapearing and the mid day 60 degrees that was an evening 50 degrees is quickly becoming a night time 40 degrees…and the wind is ripping past our faces…I’m basically done riding before we even started. But we all got ourselves out here, so I don’t mention how cold I am and that Max might be cold too.

We approach the first hill on our journey. I’m pedaling as much as I have to to not fully stop on the hill, and in doing so, I pass Owen. As I approach Chris he turns to me and says “Uh oh. Our little robot is out of steam.” I look behind. Owen is standing mid hill, straddling his bike. He does this when he tires out. Doesn’t mention it, just stops. I rode back to accompany.

“How ya doin?”

“My legs are tired. I hate this hill.”

“Yea. Me too. You wanna go home?”

“My legs aren’t tired anymore.”

He’s right back at it. Owen stands on his pedals almost all the time. I think it’s because his bike is so heavy that he needs the extra leverage just to keep the thing moving. As we’re approaching the stop sign where the other four bikers are, I see Flynn has laid his bike down to go tuck Max’s blanket in around his face. My sweet thoughtful Flynn. We’re off again.

I now mention to Chris that it’s pretty cold and I can’t imagine Owen having too much more energy. We agree that our return journey is under way. Flynn is pedaling beside me, and he keeps doing this swerving move, that makes it look as though only the tread on the very sides of his balding tires is keeping him from laying it over. I ask him to PLEASE stop doing that. I told him it really looks like an accident waiting to…

Up ahead there is a scream, I look in time to watch Iris rag doll it across the pavement in the middle of the road. Chris stops as quickly as he can and I am hustling to attend. From a distance I’m trying to see blood…I like to pre know about the presence of blood. It changes my state of mind considerably. She is sobbing and kind of holding her hip bone and wrist. Just scuffs and scrapes. As we are brushing Iris off, there is another scream. This scream I am much more familiar with. I hear this scream when a shoe comes untied. I hear this scream when the tip on a pencil breaks. This is the scream I hear from the bathroom when the wet wipes are all gone. Owen has no intermediate sound that he makes. He’s either cool as a cucumber or he has lost his mind with rage. No in between. He is laying in a small ditch on a little macadam hill/parking lot to a garage, a few yards behind the rest of us. I jog to the scene…as I am now housing a steady flow of adrenaline, allowing me to perform under such conditions with little or no emotion. Flynn gets to Owen before me “Hurry up mom! His ankle!” I run faster. His ankle is wedged between the rotating pedal and the frame of the bike. He’s howling. I get it unstuck and make sure it isn’t broken. Flynn and I calm him down and I apologize that I didn’t get there sooner. I told him that sometimes it’s hard to know when he is really hurt because he kind of screams like that a lot. He picked up his bike and we continued our return journey.

We are approaching the local park. Micah speeds ahead, there are a few kids in the park and Micah has assumed we are going. I holler to Chris that we are not going…

“People need baths!”

He passes on the message as kids begin u turning and swerving to reroute their course. Chris looks at me through the chaos…

“There’s just too many of us on bikes. Every bike ride is like the worse wreck in the Tour de France.”

I burst out laughing. I recall a brief conversation at the farmers market earlier that day when an acquaintance saw Max and asked

“When’d ya have that one!?”

“Well, he’s about a year.”

She looks shocked.

I said “Yea, I’ve been busy.”

She responded, “Well, get less busy, cause this world doesn’t need anymore people!”

No no. What this world doesn’t need is anymore people on bikes. That’s what we don’t need.

I will only briefly mention that this woman remains perched in one specific location inside the market and maybe once a week I run to market for a latte and some produce. She never moves. If standing in the farmers market, assessing other people’s birth control needs is anywhere in my future…I believe I would rather keep making people. To each their own.

For the rest of our brief ride home, I hung close to Owen. At one point he turned to me and said,

“Well, I’m glad we aren’t in Florida, since Florida conrete is harder. It’s all white and hard.”

I chuckled to myself and agreed with him. He rides a moment longer and turns to me again,

“At least my ankle works, Mom!”

I couldn’t be happier to agree with him again.

I would like to end with this deeply profound Sloan Wilson quote.

“The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard.”