Ride the line

My idea of a perfect afternoon is going for a bike ride with the family. We all get on our bikes, and before we take off, one of us raises his or her right hand and yells, “Let’s ride!” You know, like the Three Amigos did in the movie.

And then we ride to the mall or the library – next to the mall – or to a nearby park. The bike rides don’t take an entire afternoon yet, but by the end of the summer, we might even make it all the way to downtown Stockholm. With a couple of stops to eat our sandwiches, of course.

Ride on.

That’s what my parents and I did when I was a kid. We rode around and made stops at various friends’ houses, and at different sports fields. For a while, we’d watch whatever soccer match was going on, then make up our minds about the next stop, and ride there.

I remember one summer day when we were out all day, riding around the entire city of Helsinki, literally. The last stop was at a soccer pitch not far from us, and when we rode home through the esplanade that runs by the old Olympic village, the August sun still way up even though was seven o’clock in the evening.

Mom and Dad were right behind me, and we chatted about this and that. My brand new odometer told me that the day’s trip was about 40 kilometers long and that I was going 25 km/h. My record was 40-something. All was well.

I’ve now fallen back in the peloton, no longer the one leading the way, but instead the one that’s the last in line, making sure everybody’s with us, giving directions to the three riders in front of me, telling them where to turn, when to cross the street.

And I do give directions, mostly to Son and Daughter, and mostly about keeping to the right.

“Keep to the right, keep to the right,” I tell Son and Daughter as soon as I see somebody in the horizon.

“Keep to the right,” I tell them again as we pass the person in question, possibly a little louder than necessary.

That’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine, namely, people not knowing where they should walk, and not knowing where to yield when we come riding. It’s not that difficult, I tell Wife, who then tells me to drop it.

“You can’t change it by yourself. People are told to keep to the left, and so they do,” she says.

But not on a bike lane, I still always mutter back, then drop back to take my place in the peloton of ours.

My first biking memory is riding on a small country road with my aunt. I was six or seven years old which would make her a young lady in her teens, a young adult in charge of a kid who’s just learned to ride a bike. Riding a bike to the kiosk by the side of the big highway was a major adventure, even for a kid from a Helsinki suburb.

The first country road was easy, it was a dirt road, straight as an arrow, with little or no traffic. It was the next road, the paved road, that made my aunt a little worried so she kept telling me to keep to the right.

“Don’t cross the white line,” she said.

And I rode in front of her as fast as I could, keeping my eyes on the white paint that marked the side of the road. In my brain, “not crossing the line” meant that I had to stay right on the line at all times.

I remember thinking that it was impossible, and I hoped my aunt wouldn’t see that I couldn’t really stay on the paint all the time. Every time my front wheel slipped off it, I’d quickly return to riding on the line, like a man walking on a tightrope. If she did see that, she didn’t say anything, and we made it to coolest kiosk I knew, the one with a huge bottle of Jaffa, an orange soda, on its roof, and we got our ice creams.

And on our way back, I did my best to stay on the white line.

“Remember, don’t cross the white line,” my aunt yelled from behind me.

I didn’t reply. I simply rode my bike with my tongue sticking out as always when I’m focused.

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