The Bike

My beautiful mother Laurie is soon to turn another year younger and shocked me with the announcement that she wanted a bike to celebrate the big occasion. My mom has had a small fear of riding bikes as long as I've known her, but she was ready to embrace a new challenge so that she could ride with the Parlange boys. So for the last week I've been doing some research on what would be best (she wanted something sort of retro, like BZ's the White Rose), and today I forced L-dine out of the house to pick her new ride. There were just too many designs and colors to choose from for me to pick out The One.

We headed down to Wheel Sports today where I knew they had the Electra bikes, or as mom calls them the-old-lady bikes, and Lavs picked out a beautiful Electra Townie bike. It's perfect for the fearful rider-- the seat is a little lower so you can put both feet on the ground without getting off the seat to stop, and the handle bars come back towards you. It's a little bit like sitting on a recombant bike but your knees don't feel like they're in the wrong position. We grabbed a cute little wicker basket for the bike and were out the door.

Mom and I put it through it's paces with a practice ride to show it off to Steve and then around our little neighborhood, and the woman was a pro on that thing. Not a single flash of fear in her eyes! Happy birthday mom. I hope you and the boys have fun riding on Whidbey Island this week!