Bikes

Tuesday, August 8th, 2011

When I was just a young boy I wanted badly to ride a bike. I can remember getting on a yellow bike, I think it was Jim’s, and riding in a circle in the garage. I loved it. I also loved the Saturday Night Fever 8 Track but that is another story. In anycase, I think I was cruising without training wheels when I was something like 3 or 4 years old. Perhaps the folks can confirm. I do know that when I was in Kindergarten I used to hang out with my buddy Matt Callister and we would ride over to the field behind Seliger Elementary School in Carson City. On the South side of that field towards his house was a little bike track. We used to ride that track. We used to fly off a jump that was there because we watched the big kids do it. They used to jump over old car tires. We did the same. I remember being cool because all the older kids were way impressed that I could jump two car tires. Yep, I was a bad arse that actually never went anywhere with that young talent. Shoot, think about that. If I would have stuck with it I could be hanging today with the likes of Travis Pastrana in the X-Games, or maybe not.

I am thinking about bikes today because the kids love their bikes. That is a great thing. I love that they will go outside, jump on a bike and ride. I always loved to do that when I was growing up. I loved the old red bike with the banana seat that we had when we lived on Glider Lane in Sandy. That thing was the perfect wheelie bike. I credit the banana seat for providing the perfect positioning to balance a wheelie all the way down the street. Dang it, again something I was great at on a bike that I failed to capitalize on. I probably shouldn’t even get in to riding with no hands. I worked on that until I could go completely around the block without touching the handle bars. Wheelies, big jumps, no hands – I could’ve been a contender. Not that every other kid my age wasn’t doing the same thing. The point here is not to relive my younger glory days but to share some of what I used to do and to express how much I loved riding bikes. I think it is a great thing that the kids are out riding. I got a little excited tonight when we were at the local Wal-Mart Supercenter getting a tube for my bike. I saw little boy bikes and thought one of those might be a great little present for Andy on his birthday. I don’t know how we would afford one right now but maybe I will talk to Rachel and see if she wants to go in on one. Maybe if we do really well I can scrape together a little tip money that can go towards it or maybe I can pool a little something from all the siblings for one big gift? We will have to see. Of course he will need a helmet. I found Jacks blue one today so he is no longer cruising with the pink dragon fly helmet – no it got passed to Andy. I think a nice black helmet with flames should do the trick. It would match his converse and his fishin boots.

Jack had a little challenge with his bike today as one of the pedals has fallen off. I am not a fan of that. It got threaded in wrong, quite possibly when it was originally assembled. Perhaps one of the challenges with a pre assembled bike. The threads in the crank housing were bad and there isn’t much you can do with that at least that I know of. I just muscled the thing all the way on and hope it does okay. We’ll keep an eye on it. He wiped out pretty good at the school when it came off and at that point he quit bikes. Didn’t want it anymore and was pretty angry. I got him settled down some and he decided he wanted to go home. I was at Natty’s soccer practice and as Assistant Coach couldn’t just bolt so he went alone. On the way he stopped off to tell Jay about it I guess and was throwing his pedal away. Jay saved it for me and we put it back together afterwards. It seems to be holding now. Hopefully it will do okay. He didn’t have any problem jumping on it again tonight. I will keep my fingers crossed.

I figured with that experience we would use the June First Presidency Message for our FHE lesson tonight. It was President Uchtdorf – Brother, I’m Committed. The kids loved the story about the brothers and the cliff and hopefully our little discussion about being committed to something will stick. I did discuss being committed to our bike riding even when some challenges come our way. I would say they all understood except when I would say ‘Brother I’m…’ Natty kept saying Condemned. Close, or not.

So we are committed. There are several things we are committed to and the highest on that list is the Savior and his gospel. I am not exactly sure where bikes ultimately fall on that list but they are there.