Riding G.I. with an old friend.

An old friend bought a bike this year and started riding, I was out west this week and met up with her for a spin around Grand Island. She's a photographer and snapped a few pictures of us.

Tuesday's miles = 4.3

Tom Knapp will perform for free in G.I. Saturday!

This is an awesome sharp shooter show, we went to Norfolk years ago and saw it, he seldom is in the area, and I highly recommend making the time to go. Click here to find out more about this weekends event and click here to see his site. Very, very cool!

Grandma says her bike days are over. But remembered fondly!

(Picture is not grandma, or G.I., the banks of the Platte aren't that steep around there)

One of my grandmas submitted these 'old school' stories about cycling in Grand Island. I still remember my aunts pink huffy too. Not that I'd have been caught dead on a pink bike, but it did ride good. (umm... or so I heard)

Here's grandma's story:

My mother surprised me with a new girls Schwinn bike on my 10th birthday. It was a shinny blue with silver chrome, and a chrome passenger carrier on the back. It was beautiful. The first thing I did was put a card on a clothes pin attached to the spokes to make a noise when I rode it. Because of the WWII, gas and car tires were rationed, so my bike provided the needed transportation to get groceries in my large basket mounted on the front and I had "saddle bags" on the back for any books or misc.

One of my "jobs" was to go to the "ice house" to get ice for the ice box. One quarter would get a 20lb. block of ice. I would ride my bike to the ice house in the 1000 blk of north front street, give the attendant the quarter and the block of ice would come down a belt. The attendant would use his "ice tongs" to put it in my basket and I'd have to ride home really fast. One block of ice lasted about 3 days... if we didn't open the ice box too often.

One day the leg of my jeans got caught in the chain and I had to stop and rip my jeans out, hold the back wheel and push the bike 2 blocks to get home. From then on, I put a rubber band around my jeans or wore what we called "pedal pushers".

Sometimes the ice would slide a little in the metal basket making my front wheel "wobble". Another memory I have is falling over and the ice landing on the gravel road. The gravel stuck to the ice which later was wiped up in the ice box.

The neighbor girl, Ele, who rode almost everywhere with me, had a brother who could fix anything on our bikes. Especially chains.. which was a constant problem. Ele's bicycle was a beautiful yellow Schwinn with a chrome fenders. One summer day, I found some pink paint in our garage and painted my blue bicycle. It looked terrible. One day, Ele's brother repainted it for me with metal paint. I think he was embarrassed to have his sister ride around town with me the way it was. Many years later, Ele married Harlan, my husband's cousin.We laughed at family gatherings about riding our bikes all over Grand Island.The Pier Swimming pool, Sutters dairy for ice cream cones, to Skag Way which was on 3rd. street, to the Library in the 300 blk on west 2nd.

Many years later my daughter had a small pink Huffy which was very comfortable for me to ride. Living in the country I had 2 choices... the hiway or the gravel. My "gravel" experiences were not great, so I usually rode on the highway. One day I must have been about 50 yrs. (old), met up with some other girls and rode 3 miles into Cairo. We had planned to meet some other ladies in the bar at 5. As I turned towards the curb in front of the bar... my front bike wheel hit the curb and I went over the handle bars onto the sidewalk right in front of the bar. I wasn't hurt except was the laugh of the day for everyone else. My husband stopped later and took me and my bike home in the pickup.

I loved that little pink Huffy... the seat was the banana style with lots of padding. One day it was gone... someone took it to the junk pile... My family said "you just don't realize how silly you look on that tiny bike". They bought me one of those fancy girl bikes with several speeds and hand brakes...I had grown up with only one speed on a bike and knowing that if I wanted the brakes on, all I had to do was pedal backwards. I was too old to learn the new controls. The PINK HUFFY was special.

Cycling – Or as I like to call it “bike riding”. (Before Lincoln)

Now, for my momentarily favorite outdoor activity. Bike riding! I remember my first bike, do you? Click ‘comments' then 'post a comment’ on this posting and tell me about it or post a jumplink to your first bike story.

My first bike was resurrected from an iron pile by my great grandpa Gank. He fixed it up and painted it a bright orange with spray paint. I guess I was probably 4 years old. I remember him holding onto the seat while I pedaled. I don’t remember ever having training wheels. I rode it in their paved driveway, it was the biggest patch of concrete on the section outside of the floor of a building or grain bin.

The best thing about that old salvaged bike was it didn’t take any effort to pedal it! I wish I had a bike like that now. Infact, I don’t ever remember getting tired on that bike. I never said, like I do now, it’s too windy, or hot or cold to ride today. And the wrecks only hurt till I got a band-aid or a kiss from mom. Boy, that’s not the case anymore!

Years later I went with my dad to doze down the old sale barn pens on the corner of Webb Rd. and Old Hwy. 30 in Grand Island. He took a break in the middle of the day and we went to Wheelers and he bought me a new dirt bike. I rode that bike from our place to Cairo a zillion times to see my friends and swim at the pool. Highway 11 was so narrow, and corn trucks flying by would pelt me with corn kernels. But it never seemed to bother me. Back then, the Cairo grocery store had 6 packs of SureFine pop for $1 and I’d buy four of them in a shallow cardboard box and balance it on my handle bars on the 2 mile ride back home. Mom only allowed me 1 pop a day, so I’d hide cases of pop in my closet and drink room temperature SureFine cola on the sly. I’m glad my pallet has become more sophisticated since then! Now I thrive on cold Mountain Dew.

Back to bike riding. By the time I was 14 or so I parked the bike. Then when I was a freshman in college in Fremont my friend Cletus and I decided it’d be cool to have bikes. We drove to the new Wal-Mart and bought bikes and locks and rode them back to campus. We locked them up at the bike rack outside Gunderson and sure enough a couple of days later someone had broke our cable locks and stolen our bikes with less than 3 miles on them.

By 2000 we’re living in Palmer and we’ve got Wal-Mart bikes again. The kids’ kind of tool around on them in the driveway and on our quiet street. But no one rides much. We went to Dannebrog a few times to ride their trail. It’s really pretty and just the right length for amateurs or small kids. We also went to Grand Island once and rode on their trail.

During the 7 years we had bikes in Palmer I’m sure we didn’t put a total of 100 miles on any of our bikes. Really, no one hardly ever rode bikes in Palmer. Once in awhile we’d see a lycra clad road cyclist that had rode up from Grand Island, but that was a rarity and would surely cause parents to call their children indoors! If you were riding your bike in Palmer you’d more likely than not have a dozen good old boys in pick-ups stop and offer you a ride. You see if someone is riding a bike in Palmer it must be for one of two reasons: 1. Your car is broke down. 2. You’ve got yourself another DUI.

Well, I can’t say that I ever really had the urge to ride my bike while living there. And truth be told I’d have probably been the first good ol boy to pull up and offer a cyclist a ride. But, that was before we moved to Lincoln. Are you keeping score so far? That’s less than 100 miles of bike riding from age 14 to 31.