Flying Free

כ"ד טבת, תשס"ז

I learned to ride a bike, as a kid, on Sunday mornings in empty parking lots. Growing up in Manhattan there was a shortage of open space where I could learn to balance, speed up, steer and brake without inevitable mishaps that could have put me in the path of oncoming traffic or put unwitting pedestrians in the path of...well, me.

So on many Sunday mornings, my parents would wake me up early, toss me in the back seat and my bike in the trunk, and head out to the no-man's land outside shopping malls in the Blue Law area of New Jersey. We'd spend at least a couple of hours with me struggling to juggle all the necessary skills simultaneously, and with my parents taking turns holding the seat and running alongside. And then later, when I finally got it, those huge lots were my chance to fly away. I could really move, in a way I couldn't do on my own steam by any other means. I remember sailing across a parking lot until our car was a speck in the distance and then coming back the long way, turning figure eights around every set of lampposts or row of spaces between myself and the impending "time to go, now."

As the years passed, I stopped having time to do most anything, so the bicycle (and I) stayed inside. When my grandfather bought me a new adult-sized bike for a birthday, it was exciting to pick it out and to upgrade to handbrakes and multiple gears, but my chances to use it were few and short. It and its predecessor moved to the garage of the townhouse my parents bought in NJ as a combination investment /weekend home, and when I came with them there I sometimes took a much-needed break from my homework in the form of a spin around the development -- up and back along the main drag and in and out of every side road and cul-de-sac along the way, adding every possibly detour among the look-alike residences and suburban landscaping just to extend my excursion a few minutes more. A few moments of exercise, that old familiar rush of wind through my hair...then the bike went back to the garage and I went back to my papers and books.

I spent the first two of the four months I lived on kibbutz in the middle of my college years sorely wishing there was some way for my bike to join me in Israel. On kibbutz, very nearly everyone gets around by bicycle, even several older people who have graduated back to an adult-sized tricycle (with a great basket between the rear wheels for groceries, laundry, small grandchildren, etc.) Watching everyone else hop on and disappear down a path, I felt heavily encumbered by my own two feet. After quite a while of monitoring the placement of possibly-abandoned bikes and asking around for anyone who might have a spare, I was ultimately rewarded with the loan of a circa 1970s Schwinn whose owner had long since graduated to more sophisticated two-wheeled transportation but had brought it along with her when she made aliya for no reason she could articulate. I was so ecstatic to have wheels that I was more than willing to overlook the fact that there were no handbrakes (only coaster brakes, which in my mind equated with kiddie-brakes), and only one speed (again, suggestive of my old outgrown relic).

I soon realized, however, that the price I had paid for feeling grown-up had been -- as it so often is -- an imposition of weight, a deprivation of precision, a loss of invincibility in some respects and a false sense of ability in others. With this borrowed piece of simplicity I could fly again. Late at night, when an afternoon nap had left me with overflowing energy, I made dashing circuits around the kibbutz's perimeter road, gazing through the fence at the fields, the mountains in the distance, and up at the moon. Coming back from work, I could carry garbage bags under my arm, laundry over my shoulder and a bowl of dinner in my other hand and still have no problems navigating turns in the narrow paths or stopping on a dime. In the late afternoons, eager for a change of scenery, I'd ride out the back gate, through the orchards and up to the above-ground reservoirs, circling the ridge around their circumference from which I could see for miles in every direction. When I encountered hills or bumps I had to push harder and brace myself; there was no easy fix on my handlebar to mask the need for effort, nor fat treaded tires to cushion a rocky encounter. I felt real -- closer to the ground I was riding on.

At the same time, though, I was living in a bubble. Kibbutzim are, in many ways, remnants of an idealistic world that barely exists, if at all, outside their fences. No one ever, ever locks a bike there. The rows of bike racks outside the common buildings are of the type that hold the front wheel upright without the need to put down the kickstand -- nothing more. Every house's front yard has the family collection of vehicles, and just outside the doors to the laundry and the dining hall there is an ever-rotating display of bicycles whose riders have jumped off just for a moment to pick something up inside. No one ever wears a helmet; I can picture the puzzled stares that the sight of one would likely produce. And in all honesty, there's little reason for one, as certainly no one ever rides alongside a car. I imagine there's very rarely a biking injury there more severe than a skinned knee.

After my return, on the few occasions when I was out at the NJ house, I tended to prefer the old, too-small child's bicycle rather than my (not-so)-new mountain bike for my brief excursions, just to relish the nostalgic sensation it gave me. When my parents sold the house, soon after, and I had to choose one of the two to give away, common sense prevailed and I said my good-byes.

Several years later, when I finally managed to bring my bicycle up to Ithaca and collected the appropriate gear, confidence and weather to ride around campus and town, I had a very distinct sense of something gained and something lost. Gained, because I had "gotten into" biking again, felt secure in my own ability to control my location at each instant of motion, and with the help of my gears could tackle all but the steepest hills. Lost, because the lightness was gone. There was a weight under me that I had to drag with me wherever I rode, a weight on my head that shielded me not only from injury but from the invigorating breeze rushing by, a weight on the frame of the bike and my keychain and my mind when I had to secure my property wherever I parked, and a weight on my conscience when I refused to obey the minute cycling rules on campus that would have had me getting on and off so often it would have been simpler just to walk. I had transportation -- fun, recreational, even exhilarating at times (think downhill) -- but not freedom.

The bicycle was damaged that year (not while I was on it, b"H), and I ended up leaving it behind in Ithaca for anyone dedicated and mechanical-minded enough to fix it. As for myself, I was determined to find something similar to that vintage Schwinn on which I could replicate my dreams. Not being quite patient enough to wait until the photo in my mind's eye showed up on Craigslist, I paid too much for an old Raleigh in not-so-good condition. It served me well while it lasted (except for the amusing morning when one of the pedals fell off on my way to work and got eaten by the street cleaner behind me), and I particularly liked the double insurance of its coaster brakes and front handbrake (especially as neither was as immediately responsive as I might have wished). I became more comfortable riding in traffic, and with the assistance of a great big double basket, zipped my way to work grocery shopping and on other errands around town...but then one night the bike was stolen, basket and all.

So I've been watching the postings again. Part of me, the part that is feeling severely restrained and unexercised, is tempted to take the first good deal that comes along, so I can get moving again. The other part of me wants to hold out for my dream bike, the one that lets me fly with the wind. But what I've realized recently -- what prompted me to write all this out -- is that what I'm really waiting for goes beyond a bike model, beyond a reminiscent connection with certain past scenarios. There's a little part of me that's still hoping for the freedom associated with those situations, which I will likely never be able to replicate, at least not with any permanence. Because no matter how perfect the vehicle is, no matter how classic, how simple, how elementary...the life through which I will ride it is just a heck of a lot more complicated.