I wasn’t looking for anything in particular to happen a few weeks ago when I hopped on my bike for the first time this year. At my age, bike riding is a season-by-season thing…any season can be my last. But at 81, I will go for it as long as I can.
I headed for my favorite neighborhood of streets on the far side of a complex of schools, noticing all the high schoolers out for late afternoon sports practices and games. One was a baseball game—Willoughby South vs. someone else. I marvel at kids who play sports because I did as few of them as possible in my school days, convinced that I was too awkward to be any good at any of them.
After reacquainting myself with my the familiar curving streets beyond the school, I rode back, convinced I was up to another season of riding. I eagerly anticipated going further afield—a park or trail perhaps—next time I was gifted with a sunny day and an otherwise empty calendar.
I peddled back through the school property. The baseball game had ended, and the visiting team was gathered near a curb, possibly waiting for a bus to take them home. I paid little attention to them.
But then, just as I rode by, a shout from somewhere in the mass of players: “You look hot on that bike!”
I cannot number the thoughts that fleeted through my head in the microsecond following that unexpected comment. What I did as I kept on peddling was to raise my left arm, and give the caller a thumbs up. Then I hoped he didn’t think I’d given him the finger.
I really meant the thumbs up. Okay, fella; you think I look hot on my bike. I ask no questions and take your comment for what it is.
But of course it wasn’t that simple.
Why in the world did he yell that at me? To impress his team mates with his sense of humor? To taunt me? To needle an old man riding a step-through (aka girls’) bike? Was it his ironic, indirect way of “coming out?”
Could he really have thought I looked hot on that bike?
Let me tell you, he was wrong, which he would have known if he’d had more than a passing glimpse of me. First of all, no stranger in all my decades has ever called me hot, at least not out loud, and it’s not likely to start now. Second, I didn’t look hot, because my skinny frame was clothed in baggy biking shorts and a nondescript t-shirt. (I sometimes wear what some might consider hotter bike garb, but not for that short ride. Even then, I am still a skinny old man pushing the age envelope.)
Or maybe it was the bike that attracted his verbal wolf whistle? One thing my bike is not is hot. It’s a very ordinary, grayish Jamis step-through which I bought a couple of years ago so I could keep riding. With my balance issues, swinging my leg back and over the saddle as a “man’s” bike requires had become too difficult a move.
Or…maybe there is something hot (as in, sexy) in a man riding a woman’s bike…
I have finally decided that all this over-thinking is not good for me. A young jock guy declared before his teammates that Dean Myers looked hot riding his bike. I am not threatened by it, as my first, thumbs-up reaction demonstrated. Whatever the reason, his unsolicited comment was a great boost to my ego on a beautiful spring afternoon. I will just keep on ridin’ that bike for endless summers to come.
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