Ken and I lived in Colorado Springs, CO before we moved to Eugene, OR, before we moved to Bowen Island, before we moved to Sechelt.

It was in Colorado that I bought a bike. A green, hybrid bike — not a totally street or mountain bike, one in-between with medium fat tires, and 21 speeds.

Newly sober, I thought it would be good exercise and loads of fun. But, I don’t really remember riding it all that much before we moved to Oregon. I know it fit in the moving van though, and I had high hopes of riding it in Eugene. The only problem was, we lived out of town about 5 miles and Gimpl Hill was just that — a hill. A big hill.

Going up hill was simple enough. If I remember correctly; I didn’t ride it, I just got off the bike and pushed. Going down hill was another story. I was scared shitless riding that bike down hill. I hated it and if memory serves me, I put the bike in the storage shed and held high hopes for when we moved to Bowen Island. I had dreams of riding my bike around the island, to the O, or to the store. Easy peasy.

But… Bowen Island is also one big hill. Again, too steep one way and too scary the other. Forget it, the bike stayed in the shed.

Over the years, I tried an electric bike — but that didn’t work out. The electric Scootie was great and most fun, but it was a scooter and not a bicycle.

I commuted to the O for quite a while on the scootie, even had a few races with Marian on the roads it would go on. The scootie did not like up hill either, but man-o-man I could fly down the hills on that thing, and for some reason, I wasn’t scared. But, along with a lot of other things, I sold the scootie as we pared down on stuff for our next move.

One thing I never did get rid of though, was the bike I bought in Colorado. I’ve hauled that baby around from storage shed to storage shed.

Ken cleaned it up for me, put air in the tires, and today – I went for a ride!

It was so much fun. I neither had to push it up a hill or fear for my life going down one. I took off behind our house and rode out the somewhat flat road toward the Botanical Gardens, all the way to the end and back again. It was a good thirty minute ride and fun, fun, fun!!

My bum is a bit sore, I worked up a sweat, and my teeth may have a few bugs in them from the smile I’m wearing.

I think after hauling that bike around for close to 30 years, I’ve finally found a place to ride!