A couple years ago, I drove up to northeast Ohio to ride with my buddy
* in the
STOMP Bicycle Adventure, held near Akron in the Cuyahoga National Forest. It was a gorgeous, cool September day, and since much of the route was in the park there were lots of wide shoulders and sections of road shaded from the big old trees. The event was great, but the best part was the people watching. If you think there's some variety to be seen among recumbents, you should have
seen some of the homegrown and customized to purpose contraptions people were riding that day. It was one of those times when I deeply regretted not having a tiny, tote-able camera, because there would have been some great pictures to share.
Anyway, my favorite was an elderly Amish gentleman riding one of the most severely upright DF bikes I've ever seen. He had fabricated his own taller-than-commercially-available stem to position him bolt upright. The handlebars were festooned with a home-made lighting system, a traditional 2" round bell, and a large bulb horn that looked (and sounded) like it had come off a Model T Ford—and may well have. He had a pair of wire baskets mounted on each side of the rear wheel, like saddle bags. Each of the baskets held a plastic two-litre soda bottle with the cap modified to accomodate a plastic tube, which was routed along the frame to the handlebars. Who needs a Camelbak?
He had a bushy white beard in the Amish style and a hide like beef jerky. He wore a white long-sleeved shirt with thing blue stripes (like mattress ticking) and dark trousers held up with galluses. His trouser legs were secured over his battered clodhopper work boots with some sort of clips of his own invention. He wore a bicycle helmet, as required by the ride organizers, but it was like something from the '60s. He had cut the brim off a straw hat and had somehow attached it to the helmet to keep the sun out of his eyes.
The expression on his face as he rode was pure serenity. Buddha on a bike.
Not that I'm trying to suggest Buddha was Amish.
* Friend of about 45 years and best man at my wedding.
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Collin Classic 07 (Read 5479 times)
