This article by Ray Spitzenberger first appeared in Images for East Bernard Express for March 23, 2023.
When the weather is nice, you see adults as well as kids riding bicycles in our neighborhood. In fact, you’re likely to see an entire family riding together on their bikes.
This was not the case in the 1940s, when around age ten or eleven, I got my first and only bicycle. While adults’ riding bicycles were very common in other countries in the 1940’s, in the United States, bicycles were usually made for and ridden by kids. Adults preferred cars and horseback in those days.
Some historians of trivia say that the bicycle was invented by a German in 1817; others say a Frenchman in 1790, but neither device was like the modern bike.
Karl von Drais’ (the German’s) bike had no pedals, a wooden frame, wooden wheels with an iron rim and leather-covered tires, he called his invention a “Swift-Walker.”
The Frenchman’s invention in 1790 not only had no pedals, it had no handlebars, and didn’t look at all like what we consider a bicycle. So, we’ll go with the German.
Bicycles changed considerably by the time I got my first bike in 1945, but it was still a flawed “vehicle.” No doubt this was partly due to the fact it was bought second hand, because the War was not quite over (it ended three months later).
My bicycle was a rather old Schwinn, so there was no protective cover over the sprocket and chain, and the chain was loose enough to periodically slip off the teeth of the sprocket. I spent a lot of time putting the chain back on, and I learned early on that I had to roll up my pants’ leg or else the sprocket would pull my pants, with me in them, off the bike!
In spite of having a less-than-perfect bike, considering the scarcities of the times, I felt blessed to have a two-wheeler at all. In the summer, I would ride it from early morning until sunset. It was worth the enormous effort to pedal it up to the top of the steep hill on the road near our house so that I could “fly” down the hill seemingly as fast as a bullet.
Every day I got more comfortable, and bolder, with my “flying” Schwinn. It was inevitable that my boldness would lead to a major accident.
One day, “flying” down that hill, I had become so comfortable and bold I took both hands off the handlebars and raised them up in a kind of victory gesture. The bike wobbled, threw me up in the air, and I swan-dived into the ditch, landing on my shoulder and the side of my head.
I got up, grabbed my bike, and walked it down the hill.
What saved me from a broken neck was landing on a huge patch of wild ditch lilies! I have loved ditch lilies ever since!
After that scary accident, I lost my enthusiasm for bicycles, and in my adult years, the only bike I would ride was a stationary exercise bicycle.
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Ray Spitzenberger is a retired Wharton County Junior College teacher, a retired Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.