When John and I met 14 years ago, it was on a mountain bike ride. When I returned to Vermont 9 years ago, John and I went on a mountain bike ride with a group of friend. When we began dating three years later, it was on a few mountain bike rides. Most of these mountain bike adventures involved a failed bike part, a crash, and maybe a little swearing. Mountain bike rides show you "the good, the bad, and the ugly" sides of a person. And for those people who know John well, or have had the opportunity to go on a long mountain bike ride with him, they know that he often displays it all. That said, I still managed to fall in love with John.
Two years ago, John and I went on a lot of mountain bike rides. I think we went for rides 3-4 times a week. In fact, John proposed to me at our favorite network of trails after one of those unusual flawless rides (meaning there were no crashes or bike failures).
Last summer, even though I was four-six months pregnant, we continued to mountain bike. I took the less aggressive routes, but we still got out quite a bit. As the leaves began to change, my rides took me on the dirt roads and mellow terrain, but we were out there.
Since Cally was born, we've had three "mountain bike dates". On the first one, we hired a babysitter, left the house, and realized we had forgotten my wheel (fortunately, we were riding near by and the turn around didn't cost us too much time), then John's had some catastrophic bike failure and I ended up riding with two of his past students for the rest of the ride........ not exactly the date we had in mind. For the next ride, we dropped Cally with Medora and Mary and met up with our friends Jen and Nils. Within minutes, John's tire had a catastrophic blow........ Finally, while my parents were here, we got out for a two hour long ride and were reminded of those days when we were corting.
We have each gotten out on individual rides with our friends, but those have been fewer and further in between because of the rain and a desire to hang out as a family. And so, we've found a new way to get out on our bikes. Two years ago, we would have poo pooed this type of activity, but these days, this is how we get out:
More and more often, we jump on the bikes, head out to a bike path (Burlington or Stowe) and get Cally out on a casual ride. Sometimes, we throw a few tennis rackets in the back of the Chariot and get a few games of tennis in while we are out. Other times, we do a dirt road loop and cap it off with a cremee.
While these rides are way less aggressive and exciting than the rides we used to take, they never involve swearing, bike failures, or injuries. Someday, we'll get those multiple days of epic mountain biking in again. In the mean time, I'm actually liking the bike path rides. When Cally isn't sleeping, she's taking in the beautiful scenery where we live and usually wearing one of those enormous smiles.
