We are
experiencing an early autumn in Oslo this year, not that I am complaining,
because the sun is shining more than it did the entire summer. So for some few
hours a day, in the early afternoon, there is actually some sunshine and
warmth. Today was a perfect day for a bicycle ride up along the Akerselva river, which
is something I have done quite often in recent years. Biking up along the river
from the beginning to the end (Oslo fjord to Maridalen reservoir) is a total
distance of about five miles, so it’s not a long river. My trip today was about
six miles round trip (from Ila to Kjelsås and back); for the most part fairly
hilly on the way up, but an easy and enjoyable return downhill for those (like
me) who end up being a bit tired afterwards.
I have
biked all my life, it seems. There is something about getting on a bike that
spells freedom for me. I learned like most other children to ride a two-wheeler
when I was around eight years old, and after that I was sold. I can remember
biking around Tarrytown as a teenager, exploring back streets, the Sleepy
Hollow cemetery, Philipse Manor and Sleepy Hollow Manor, and maybe once or
twice I got as far as Rockwood State Park, slightly north of Tarrytown on route
9. I didn’t go much further north than that. Sometimes I had my friends with
me, but most of the time I was alone. When Westchester county officials decided
in 1975 or 1976 to close off the Bronx River Parkway to cars on Sundays during
the summer and early fall, I was thrilled. Bicycle
Sundays still exist as I discovered when I googled them (http://www3.westchestergov.com/news/2674). The course ran from the
Westchester County Center in White Plains south to Scarsdale Road in Yonkers, which
was a round-trip of about 13 miles. I would first bike from Tarrytown to White
Plains and then bike the entire round-trip course, together with a lot of other
bike enthusiasts. There was no question of biking fast—you were limited by how
fast the others biked. But sometimes I could break away from the pack. My brother
joined me on some Sundays and that was always nice. He became quite a good
biker and went on to participate in triathlons in his early twenties. In early
1976, the year of the bicentennial of the USA, I and my friend Loraine from
college decided to try and join one of the cross-country trips that was offered
by BikeCentennial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikecentennial), now called TransAmerica Bicycle
Trail (http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/transamerica.cfm). She left it up to me to do the
planning. I do remember getting the brochure/maps in the mail and poring over
them, trying to decide what route would be best for us, and settling on a
week-long trip through Virginia; I don’t remember the exact route, but the
present routes are probably the original routes. We both bought fairly expensive
bikes for that time, in April 1976, in order to be able to train for this trip.
Unfortunately, by the time we registered for it, it was booked solid and we missed
out on that opportunity. Many of the other trips were not on the East coast and
we were limited in what we could choose, since the Virginia trip was the one
trip that fit our time schedule; we had the month of August free and after that
we had to return to college. So we didn’t manage the Bikecentennial trip, but I
at least kept on biking and am still doing so today. I still flirt with the
notion of attempting another such trip—shorter distance and shorter time, in
the USA or in Norway. But it has not come to pass and I must admit that I have
not actively sought it out. After I left college and moved to the Bronx, my biking
days became more limited because I did not feel comfortable biking in the
Bronx. When I later moved to New Jersey in the mid-1980s, I bought a new bike
at the urging of my brother who by that time was a triathlon biker. My new bike
was a racing bike; to go with my new bike, I needed biking shoes (that attached
to the pedals) and biking gear. Biking in America at that time was really taking
off (this was around 1986-87), thanks to Greg LeMond and his 1986 win in the
Tour de France. Bikers needed trendy gear. However, I never really felt
comfortable with any of it, and I hated that my shoes were attached to the
pedals when I biked. It felt claustrophobic. So if I biked, it was in the old
way, comfortable shoes—unattached to the pedals, regular pants, no helmet—as non-aerodynamic
as possible. I have relented somewhat over the years—I own bicycle pants with
padding that reminds me of a big diaper, and a seat cover with padding, and bicycle gloves to grip the
handlebars better. But this is about comfort and nothing else—if seats were
comfortable like in the old days I wouldn’t have bought a seat cover or bicycle
pants. I also own a helmet that I never use; I don’t like the feeling of having
it on my head and it seems to interfere with my hearing—too much swooshing in
my ears. I’ve fallen off a bike twice in my life; the first time as a child and
a passenger on my friend’s bike--I smashed my front tooth, and the second time as
an adult—I ended up with skinned knees that were painful and took weeks to heal.
But small injuries have never deterred me. After I moved to Norway in 1989, I didn’t
bike regularly for a number of years, I’m not even sure why, not until I bought
a bike again in 1997 and used it to bike to and from work. But after I injured
my back in 2001, I didn’t get on a bike again until 2009. I was afraid of injuring
my back and for some reason I associated biking with back problems. This fear
turned out to be unfounded. So now I am biking again, not as much as I’d like,
but much more often than I thought I’d manage.
Although I enjoy
walking and hiking in the forests and our occasional trips to the mountains, I think
I enjoy biking best. It is something I can always do, anywhere. I prefer it to
jogging, which I find somewhat monotonous, although I do jog at times. I have
biked to work on occasion; that is real training, again mostly uphill all the
way. Suffice it to say that my energy level is not at its peak in the morning,
so I do struggle a bit. I am an early afternoon biker from the standpoint of
being able to tackle all of the physical challenges involved. I think what I have
always liked about biking is the freedom, the fact that you get to different
places faster than you would if you walked, and that you are outdoors in
nature. The latter is most important to me these days. I cannot wait to get
outdoors now—to breathe fresh air, to be out in the sunshine, to be a part of
the nature around me. In such respect, I don’t really miss my health club
training; although I am still a member, I am rarely there, because it means
going indoors and stepping onto machines—treadmills, cross-country machines—that
take me nowhere. The only way I survive the boredom of training is to have my
iPod with me. That saves me. I train indoors during the winter—I don’t enjoy
biking in the ice and snow, although I have one friend who does and she says it’s
fine as long as you have the right tires. Perhaps I will get to that point one
of these days, if only to find my way outdoors again during the long winters.
