Born To Ride

 Ride bikes. 

That was an activity. When I was a kid in the suburban seventies there were many weekends, afternoons and vacations that were spent doing just that. 

We lived on a cul-de-sac so the concern about cars and other traffic aside from our two wheeled conveyances was minimal. Hours of my youth was spent on the banana seat of my Schwinn Stingray, pedaling from one end of the block to the other. My brothers and the rest of the neighborhood kids swarmed around me on their bikes, and we didn't need a destination. 

We just needed to ride. 

"Go outside and play," was a both a command and a suggestion. The actual activity that would fill up the rest of our day was yet to be determined, but since I had a couple of built-in playmates in my brothers and access to more than a dozen more once I walked out the front door, being alone was not a concern. But contrast, finding a moment alone was something that was at a premium in those days. Once I hit the front walk, someone was there abruptly, wanting to know what the day's activity was going to be. 

Ride bikes. 

Certainly this was the low end of the creative spectrum, but once we had all saddled up, there was plenty that could be accomplished aside from just rushing furiously form one end of the street to the other. There was Chase. And Bike Tag. And Cops and Robbers. All of these were made instantly more dangerous because of the varied level of skill among the kids who were playing. Riding a bike full tilt at another kid only to pull up short, skidding to a stop next to them and reaching out: Tag. Many times the simple physics of these interactions went awry and resulted in trips to someone's mom to administer a swab of hydrogen peroxide and a band-aid. Or two. That kid or kids would be champing at the bit to get back outside to show off their wounds with a peek behind that adhesive strip. They wanted to get back out there. 

To ride bikes.