I was ten years old the Christmas morning that my sisters and I awoke to discover three shiny new bicycles under our tree. The joy and excitement was overwhelming. We jumped up and down and ran around the room screaming with pure joy as only children know how to do. It was the best Christmas ever.

We hurried through the required task of opening our other gifts while bundling up in our hats, coats, gloves and boots. It wasn’t long after we had maneuvered our bikes outside that our glorious day took a horrible turn. Our hopes and dreams were quickly dashed when we discovered that we couldn’t ride in two feet of snow.

We spent most of the day naming and renaming our bikes, discussing all the places we would go, and sitting on our bikes with the kick stand down, neatly lined up in front of the picture window, pretending we were riding as we watched the snow continue to pile up.

Waiting for the snow to clear was worse than waiting for Christmas Day. When it did, we knew we were ready. It would have been apparent to any observer that we had no idea how to ride a bicycle. Unaware of that small detail, we did what we always did. Collectively, we figured it out.

Being the ‘boy’ I was selected to be the test pilot and I accepted that honor with great pride. I took the falls while my sisters looked for solutions to remedy my deficiencies as a pilot. After numerous crashes and an occasional encounter with the fence and/or the apple tree, I could coast the two hundred feet downhill from the back yard to the fence in front of our house. I had difficulty stopping but, fortunately for me, my sisters discovered how to apply the brakes before I had another encounter with the fence. It wasn’t long before all of us were coasting down the hill and walking our bikes uphill for another run. Within a week we were riding everywhere.

The joy of getting a bicycle dimmed in comparison to the joy of self-discovery in learning to ride and the freedom and sense of adventure that came from riding.

We are Bike Blue and riding a bicycle is paramount to who we are.  Please join us in sharing the gift of putting someone safely on a bicycle.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS to you and your family from all of us at Bike Blue.