Easy Rider
Like kisses and swimming in the ocean, you always remember how it felt the first time. Park it anywhere, kickstand down, dash off in flip-flops to play with friends, never worrying it would be there for the ride home.
My trusty Raleigh (almost exactly like the one pictured here) even played a key role in my first sexual encounter.
When briefly dating a professional biker, I was inspired to get one with a bunch of speeds, and toe clips. Alas, after a childhood spent without them, on the first day out, I crashed into a brick wall and broke my arm. That bike spent most of its 15-year life safely cloistered in the basement.
After years of vowing to get back in the saddle, last spring I bought myself another one, with all the requisite gear, including helmet and two locks (Kryptonite and cable).
Within three weeks, it was gone. Stolen from a locked garage, where it had been secured with both locks around a metal pole. Snatched along with five other bikes during a two week crime spree.
No one was hurt, and given the rash of neighborhood assaults lately, that's the good news.
Unless you spent the winter on another continent, you know it's been bike weather since, well, last spring. Nostalgia for the bike I hardly knew makes me yearn to recapture the joy and freedom I felt riding as a kid.
This time, size really does matter. So, after much research, I've found the coolest folding bike ever, equal parts living room sculpture and urban transport.
Awaiting its arrival, I avidly watch chic Georgetowners maneuvering through traffic, many on bright red ones thanks to Capital Bikeshare, gliding safely along newly paved bike lanes, cruising along Georgetown Waterfront Park, and hitting the Capital Crescent Trail. Georgetown, you're a biker's paradise.