Kids, Bikes, and a Good Mystery

When I was a kid, a bike was a total ticket to freedom in a way I can't imagine it being for A or any of her friends today.

We used to take off on our bikes and go to friends' houses, friends of friends houses, to the store to buy junk food, change our minds and go anywhere else we felt.  If something ever happened, I know for a fact that my parents wouldn't have the slightest idea what "route" I had taken.  I didn't even know myself until I was on it!

Seemed pretty normal "back in the day" but I know I wouldn't be able to breathe if I'd just sent A out into the wild suburbia for hours on end without any idea at all where she was.  And I seriously doubt any of her friends' moms would either.

Partly, I know suburbia is less "watched" than it was in the 1970's when parents and "empty nest" housewives were all over and keeping an eye on things.  But I also suspect it's partly also just a bigger awareness of what could happen that makes parents from 1980-ish onward a lot more careful/fearful.   Sarah Pryor would have been 35 this year--that thought alone is enough to make me want to tail A everywhere she goes from now right through to adulthood, possibly beyond.

Many of my favorite childhood books featured bike-riding heroines who got into adventures that made for good plots precisely because they were unwatched and free into the world on their bikes.

fenders? check! chainguard? check! basket? you bet!

Just wouldn't be such a good story if Trixie Belden suspected someone was the thief but her Mommy wouldn't let her near the crime scene, would it?


And it's not just our side of the Atlantic, either.  When I was in England in 1990, the kids I was in school with all regularly joked about the Famous Five book series, which, as I understand it, involved 4 kids and a dog getting into and out of scrapes often while dashing across the countryside on their bikes--refreshed afterward, of course, by "lashings of ginger beer."

I should probably try to Inter-library Loan those--I bet A would get a kick out of them.

The bike = freedom + adventure is obviously not just an American thing.  Wonder if Jamie Oliver would be working with such purpose on school lunches and school dinners if we still lived that way?

Nancy Drew was older, more sophisticated, and had her roadster, of course, but most other mystery series of this kind had some kind of bike adventure going on.

The Boxcar Children did (after they stopped being orphans alone in the world, of course)

The Bobbsey Twins did, too.

Encyclopedia Brown?  Yep.

Trixie has been republished and A loves the stories, but I suspect they feel a lot less possible, less reality based (given the right criminals lurking around, at least) to her than they did me at her age.

Books set in "olden times" still feature bikes, Molly (1940's) and Julie (1970's--cringe) from American Girl ride bikes and Samantha (1900's) learn to ride a bike as a metaphor for gaining some independence in a parallel for the changing rights of women in her time.

Right now, it seems like most popular new children's books (for kids 9-13, not talking picture books) are science fiction/fantasy.  Harry Potter's popularity obviously had a lot to do with that, but I wonder how much Harry Potter and the others gained popularity because for today's kids a real adventure requires a made-up setting?

Lucy has a Dynohub

The more I become obsessed over learn about older bikes, the more I notice about bikes "in the wild"

A and I were watching the DVD of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader the other evening and came across some nice WWII is British bikes in the beginning of the film.  We saw the movie in the theater when it first came out, but that was pre-Columbia Sports III and it didn't leave much of an impression at the time.  But now?

Take a look at some of the awesomeness recreated for the film (click for larger images):

All screencaps from www.homeofthenutty.com

Look at how cool those are!

And I could be wrong, but I think the chainwheel on the guy's bike on the left is the gorgeous Raleigh (heron) design:

from Bikeworks NYC chainwheel gallery

And Lucy herself has a cool old bike (or, I guess, not old but appropriate, given the WWII the setting):

And did you catch the hub on the front wheel in that first photo?

It's a Dynohub--"an exclusive Raleigh feature you can't afford to miss!"--as seen in this 1939 Raleigh Catalog (on Sheldon Brown's site):

It's a 12-volt generator that powers the headlight by using magnets in the hub to create AC current (and see, all those physics courses weren't entirely wasted, 20 years later I can understand a bike hub--obviously worth it all the time).

A loves the 1930's-40's era, she loves the costumes in this movie (the screencaps give her the chance to get a good look at them) and now the bikes, too.  And I'm loving that sweet Dynohub!

The future of America

The Columbia is in pieces and various stages of clean-up so last Sunday A and I took the-highschool-bike (Kent-brand road bike of slight disrepair) and the-after-college-bike (better fitting Trek mountain bike of the 90's) to a local school parking lot to take them for a spin.

Seeing how neither of them had been ridden in at least A's lifetime and the preceding 9 months, in the case of the Trek, and much longer, in the case of the Kent, I felt it was probably a good idea to try them out away from traffic before doing much else.

Surprisingly, the Kent (which was never that great to begin with) did just fine, but the Trek was having some gear shifting (or would that be gear not shifting?) problems.

But here's the good part:  while I was taking a look at the Trek to see if I could figure out anything intuitive to do with it, one of the 14ish-year-old skateboarders who were cruising around the school near dusk (town officials love that!) stops and asks us what the problem is and if we'd like him to take a look at it...

...he tells us he has his tools and whips out an Allan wrench set from his backpack.

(probably not this one but it might as well have been)

...tells his skateboard friend he'll just be a second and tries the shifting, tightens up a few things, tells me to give it a try and does a few more fixer kind of things.

A and I ride off into the sunset, as does 14ish-year-old skateboard kid and his similar age skateboard friend (or more towards the sunset since it was dusk).

Personally, (and consider this said in my best suburban mom tone) I though it was very cool of him.

No actual crystal ball in my possession, but I like the idea that kids like that are our future.  I guess everyone reads enough about screwed-up teens and "what's the world coming to?" stuff, but the kids I know are better than that and apparently so are at least some kids I don't even know.

Plus, some of them carry tools with them when they skateboard at local schools--who knew?

Who wouldn't want a bike like that?

Images from Mr. Columbia's bike site

Mr. Columbia has a page on his site with post-war baby boomer comic book advertising that is absolutely and totally delightful.  My darling husband was a child in the '50's and '60's and well remembers when Columbia bikes were the bike to have.

Actually, my Father-in-law mentioned to me that he also had a Columbia bike of his own about 70 years ago!

But, really, those post war Columbias are something else--don't you just love the optimism and the crazy jet-powered look of these mid-century bikes?

Come on, a bike with rocket-jet inspired form--how cool is that?

I love to think of my husband and kids like him roving the streets in packs of kids playing outdoors till the street-lights came on and peddling off to the ball fields, the lake, the store for treats--all summer long (and sure, it wasn't true for everyone, but my husband remembers this vividly and I can't believe he was the only one).

But, here we are in 2011 and I'm thinking about a "tween" who really, super-duper wants to peddle off on a 35 year-old Columbia bike (love that girl!). 

I'm long past being a middle-school girl myself, obviously, but I remember it in my life as a time when image was everything and having the wrong brand (or in my case, not having Calvin Klein jeans and Nike sneakers) was social suicide.  And that's before we even look at my embarrassing banana-seat bike (early '80's was not their hay-day!) that had had the handle bars stolen and replaced with rusty black BMX style bars since my dad found them free.

And I'm wondering how this Columbia Sport III fits 2011 in the suburbs.  It's 100% clear that A loves the bike and wants the bike.  Badly.  And I trust A to make that determination for herself.

Will the bike be a choice that will be the envy of all her friends (the way the "Jet Rider" was advertised to do--"Want to make the gang's eyes pop?")?  Maybe, or maybe not--but that's probably not really the point here, is it?  Plus, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what tweeners in our area think of vintage 3-speeds, that's the honest truth.

I love that A saw something she could have and personally loves and that's all she needs to make a decision, rather than holding a tribal council of others to tell her what she should like or do.  Don't know if that's just her, her generation, or actually something we accidentally did right in raising her, but I'll take it.

The town we live is, on average, quite a bit above our income level, so I also wonder if that alters the meaning--is vintage cool?  or is old even more un-cool in a town where many kids have lots of privilege?

Totally flying in the dark here!
 
Interesting note, and possible hint to myself--when we were driving the Columbia home through the neighboring town, we stopped at a crosswalk to let 3 young teen-ish girls, walking a bike, cross the street.  The bike looked new but was a cruiser and obviously vintage styled.

So, do I have a point?  Well, not a major one, just some musing and wondering about what it means to middle-school girls to ride a vintage 3-speed.  I'm not worried about A, I support her choice of awesomeness, she can hold her own (and I personally think the bike is excessively awesome), but I am a little bit curious.