That girl down there? My daughter, Andrea.
(Just minutes before I left her and the rain started)
We’ve been batting around the idea of her joining me for a week or two and she’s incredibly excited. As for me, I can’t imagine not trying to figure out how to make it work. After all, how many of us parents have our kids ask us to do some neat things with us? It just floors me.
Here’s what we’ve sort of figured out:
1. The bike that I started with, the Trek Fuel 90, is actually perfect for her (it was probably too small and light for me). We’ve cut the seatpost down a bit so it can get lower and our buddy Bob at the bike ordered a new stem to move the handlebars in and up a wee bit. The owner, Stan, gave the her and the bike a long thoughtful look and then assured us that it was all going to work.
2. She’s not a cyclist the way I’ve been, but she’s been off and on a road bike all her life and we’ve even been camping (once! : – ). Just like picking a college two thousand miles away, I think she sees this as part being an adventurer — find wild things and go chase them down! She’s quite a bit more fit than I am, so I told her she’s going to have to pull me along when I’m tired.
3. The trip can’t really be the same. She and I both know that we won’t go as fast, stay in the saddle as long, or get as far as I would have in the first plan. Strangely enough, we’re both ok with that. I’ve asked her to put in enough saddle hours so that we can get the bike just right and so that she’s used to it. She, in turn, is putting a lot of faith in me to make sure that it works out.
Andrea, cyclist, back from a jaunt to the new york city line.
