Back in my old stomping grounds after a few years away, hoisting a few beers with my old college roommate Stepper, I finally asked him about a topic that had intrigued me for, well, decades.
We were sitting around the kitchen table in our junior year, devouring our Sunday go-to feast — a calzone-ish creation with sauce, salami, pepperoni, ham and cheese called a Samson.
I looked around the table and posed this simple question: Who will get married first?
Well, Stepper had been dating Jill since early in high school, Bergie and Patty had been together since senior year of high school and Retz had been dating more than a year.
I still hadn’t even asked out Debbie, an effervescent freshman who worked with me at the student newspaper, although I spoke about her and lured to our apartment a few times.
We filled out secret ballots and the results stunned me. By a vote of 3-1, I was pegged as the favorite to get married first. And, they were right.
Talking about the ol’ daze, I asked Stepper about that. He told me, “Raz, you’re super loyal and once you’re committed, you’re in it for the long haul.”
Hmmmm.
Funny how things pop into my head. We just hit a new campground the night before, so early in the morning I jumped on my Cannondale Lefty with my Golden Lab Summer on a leash, and we went exploring.
First we left our Forest Service campground and headed for the State Park. We jumped on an abandoned road that serves as a trailhead, and rolled up to an amazing morning view overlooking the Wenatchee River.
From there we zipped down a steep dirt singletrack, into the ant hill of a campground, gently cruising around the various loops.
That’s when it hit me. This buzz in my tummy that slowly bubbled up to my head with a smile exploding across my face. Dang, I just love this bike!
Whether I’m just tooling around at 5 mph, or chugging up a mountain bike ascent, then ripping (for me) down it, or pedaling four hours on a dusty, sun-drenched rail-trail, or spinning through downtown Spokane, or plodding back home 20 miles on a forest service road, I just love being on this bike.
Maybe part is just its newness to me, or that it’s old school vintage style fits an old man like me, or that I missed dual suspension in the past year relying on a Thudbuster seat post for comfort on my hardtail Cannondale, or that it cost a fraction of most bikes I pass, or, hell, it’s probably all that and more.
The more, of course, is the magic dust sprinkled upon every bike so it meshes with its owner on a cosmic level that’s impossible to explain to anyone who has never pulled on lycra shorts.
We spent seven weeks on the road this summer, enjoying almost every type of ride you could imagine, and I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I just swooned about this bike.
Of course, I’ve felt this way before. I’ve ridden more than a few bikes until they simply could not be ridden any more. I’m sure this will be the case with my Lefty.
But until then, well, I’ll just be myself — the Raz that Stepper and my roommates came to know all those years ago.
Time to ride
