That’s my son, Dylan, and me.  He’s a college student who came to visit the old people for Christmas.  When his older brother, Nick, was just a wee lad, we bought Nick a pretty nice little bicycle.  It was a Schwinn Gremlin.  As Nick outgrew that bike, Dlyan grew into it and when Dylan outgrew it, we passed it on to another little boy.  It went to at least one more after that.  Nick and Dylan, as boys will, went through several bikes as they grew; mostly BMX bikes on which they did what I would call pretty radical stuff.  

    One evening, I was sitting in the bathtub when Nick and Dylan came in and said they needed to use the sink.  Suspecting something was up, I told them to turn around.  Dylan’s eyebrow was cut wide open, but Nick assured me it only needed a little alcohol poured on it and Dylan would be good to go.  I said I thought we’d go to the hospital where they stitched it up for him.  It turned out, he’d cut it while jumping over the garbage can from a ramp they’d cobbled together from wood scraps.  

    That incident didn’t faze Dylan any more than the speed wobble wreck he’d had a couple of years before on the Gremlin.  With scars that barely show, Dylan went on with his bikes.  

    When we moved to Tumwater, Dylan fell in with a bunch of bike riding boys, one of whom had a very nice BMXer he’d built up himself.  One day someone needed an inner tube or a chain, and I said I’d ride over to the bike shop with them since they suffered from pernicious financial crisis.  On my Bianchi, they couldn’t keep up, but as stunts go, I never even tried.  Three of those boys had their bikes stolen over a period of time and Nina and I replaced them as they went.  You’re supposed to give some of your income to the poor and we decided that young teenagers who’d lost their bikes qualified as needy, so we bought bikes.

    All this time, I hoped Dylan would follow me into a love for road bikes.  Heck, I never thought very hard about getting a car until just a couple of months before I married at 23.  But it wasn’t that way with the neighborhood bike club.  As they turned 16, they fell for cars in a big way, and they began fooling around a little with scooters, but the bicycles just sort of weren’t around anymore.  

    Of course I kept pitching bicycles; reminding all those boys, well, young men now, that bicycles have it way over cars for most transportation needs and wants.  I’d become hopeful when they would sometimes ask me how I get to some distant place on my bicycle because they’d be looking for someplace to go on their scooters.  

    “Can we get to the coast from here without going on the freeway?” they’d ask.  I’d tell them yes and show them on a map different routes I’ve ridden to the coast on my bicycle.  Then they’d get mad because they weren’t allowed to ride their scooters on roads with speed limits above 50mph and I can ride my bike on most any road.  In four hours or so, I could ride out to Ocean Shores on my bike, but there didn’t seem to be a way for them to do it on their scooters.  

    Bicycles are better, I’d tell them, but this never persuaded them to the wisdom of selling their scooters and getting on bicycles; and it sure never even gave them pause to think about parking their cars.

    So Dylan came out to visit us for Christmas and he rode around a little on one of our bikes and he told me he’d like to have me build him a bike sometime, but just not right now; later, when he has a better place to ride it and when he has a better place to keep it and ...  

    I haven’t given up hope though.  I think I see a little glimmer in Dylan’s eye when he looks at my bikes.  I hope he lets me build him a bike one day and I hope he gets his friends back out with him riding; this time on road bikes.  

    I should end here because this looks like the end, but I’ll says one more thing.  Part of the way to keep people coming into cycling is to do what I’ve done as a father; get the kids bikes and encourage them to ride them.  But, that’s not all.  When they come back to cycling as adults or they become serious about it as older teens, we really need to encourage them.  I have a sentence I clipped from a forum today.  It was written by a guy named, Scott, who obviously has a lot of cycling behind him.  He’s not a new cyclist, but, like many of us, he got into randonneuring three years ago and he’s been riding with the Oregon Randonneurs.

    Of the Oregon Randonneurs he wrote, “I have to say this is the best-organized, friendliest, most supportive group I’ve ever ridden with.”

    Even though I now live in North Carolina, I am still a member of the Oregon Randonneurs until my membership runs out in a few more days.  I actually only rode two of their brevets last spring, but I’ve ridden with plenty of the club’s riders because many of them ride the Seattle Randonneurs’ brevets too.  They are a great bunch of people.  I’ll vouch for that.  But, I was thinking.  I wonder if I said anything supportive or friendly to Scott.  Maybe he did that for me.

    Oh, and one more thing.  If you see Dylan, the young fellow at the top of this post, ogling your bicycle some day, tell him, “Hey, Dyl.  Why don’t you ask your dad to build you one.  You should be out on a bike yourself.  You have the perfect build for it.”

    Thanks in advance for that.