Mount Hamilton is in the Diablo Mountain Range east of San Jose California. Built in 1876 the Lick Observatory began with a 12” refracting telescope. The complete construction cost what today would be $25 Million dollars, all privately donated by James Lick who built his wealth building pianos. This was back in the day when wealthy men used their own wealth to better society, instead of using their notoriety to call for the use of the lesser wealth of others to better society. In 1888 a 36” refracting telescope was installed, which for 10 years was the largest operational telescope in the world.
Barry posted some pictures on Facebook; the observatory, he in his brightly colored riding togs, and landscapes.
I was brought to consider Geoffrey Chaucer’s 1374 utterance; “as an ook cometh of a little spyr” (which loosely would be old English for “great oaks from little acorns” a 14th century proverb.
You see, I know from whence this bicyclist came from, and another way to say that would be: “From such inauspicious beginnings”.
As boys we walked everywhere, at least until we owned bikes. Then we biked everywhere we went (at least without a backpack) until we could drive. And in fact, we biked a lot for transportation even after we could drive. I know that Barry biked to work and back (at least on and off) until after he got out of the Navy.
It has been interesting watching the devolution of my post-retirement brother back to one of the mainstay activities of his youth. He has obviously embraced it with the same passion that he had when he was younger and time was more plentiful. Oh, he has better equipment today, and more of it too, but the pure joy has obviously returned.
And why not? Riding a bike is a wonderful activity. It is good for the heart, the lungs, and the muscles. It is even better for the mind and relaxation. There is little that is more enjoyable than flowing through the countryside with the breeze bringing the scent of wildflowers and the sounds of the birds, and the glimpse of a deer, fox, or even a squirrel now and then.
And I am confident that along with being vastly safer, those fluorescent colored riding togs he wears are also a great improvement for comfort over riding in blue jeans as we used to do. No jeans-seam saddle sores, and less chaffing as well. No matter how much abuse we used to ladle on colorful clad cyclists back in the day.
Yep, riding a bike is a delight, at least when you are doing it right.
But I’d have to say, that Barry has not always done it right.
I’ll leave the serious road rash in San Diego for him to tell someday, because I wasn’t there and can’t do it justice. But there are a couple three tales I can tell.
In 1968 an earthen dam was built outside of Livermore in the hills south of town across a small creek called Arroyo del Valle. A couple years later, the local area Park District laid some sod, poured some asphalt parking areas, staked down a few redwood picnic tables, and started charging money to swim, sail, boat, and fish at the lake that had backed up behind that dam. The three of us boys decided the summer it opened to ride our bikes out to the lake to go swimming one day.
Now it’s a 10 mile ride from town, out South Livermore Avenue, to Mines Road, out past Barry’s future wife’s house and then up and over Mendenhall grade and down into the park. And while 10 miles isn’t far for a good road bike these days, we were all riding old Schwinn bikes that with our paper racks and all weighted in at a good 50 pounds and so Mendenhall was steep, and long. To make things worse Mendenhall was exposed to the morning sunshine so you have to sweat all the way up that hill. And did I mention steep? Steep enough that even weaving back and forth across both lanes and the shoulders wasn’t enough and we had to get off and push the bikes part way up.
Once you got to the top and started down into the valley the lake is in, there are a couple things you needed to know. It’s steep, and fast, and fun; and there are two places where the cross wind blows so hard and sudden that if you aren’t ready for it, it about blows the bike right out from under you, and ready or not, you will be changing lanes.
And while it may not have made it any faster, we would rise up off the seat, lean forward to get our shoulders and sternum in front of the handlebars, clench our knees together through the bike frame to control the wobble and hurdle down that hill.
This position had the added benefit of making the bike less stable in the cross wind, adding to the excitement. Spelled p·a·n·i·c.
That first trip down the hill Barry was far out in front of me, both of us on the far side of the true definition of control, when on rounding a curve Barry saw a cattle guard across the road ahead.
For those of you who have grown up city bound. A cattle guard works like a gate to keep cattle inside a fence line. But unlike a gate, the cattle guard doesn’t need to be opened or closed to go through the fence. It consists of a shallow trench that extends completely across the road with a number of pieces of pipe that serve as a “road base” to keep tires from falling through, but leaving cattle afraid of crossing because their hooves tilt and slip on the pipes.
Of course the tires that won’t fall through are car tires, not thin bike tires.
So, Barry sees this cattle guard way up ahead but is moving so fast that he thinks he is going to hit it and crash. So he slams on his brakes. And I do mean slams. In fact, having owned the same bike, with the same cast brake handles, I have no idea how it is that he didn’t snap off a brake lever. And in all my days since, I have never again seen smoke come off a bike’s brakes.
His bike immediately began to slow down.
I immediately had to swerve to keep from ploughing into his rear tire and was thus occupied when my bike flashed by him, and smoothly rolled over the cattle guard.
Barry realized that it is a fake cattle guard painted across the asphalt. But it had worked on him as well as it apparently worked on cows. I won’t make any intelligence level comparisons.
When we stopped at the park ranger entrance station about a ½ mile further down, we had to peel melted brake pad material off of Barry’s chrome tire rims before we could go on to the lake to swim.
Sometimes, instead of heading out to the lake itself, we would ride out South “L” Street across the bridge over Arroyo Mocho where the road changed names to become Arroyo Road. That old car bridge was narrow and had a separate wooden walkway pinned to its side. Unusual for a bridge, it had both a bend in the middle, and a serious bump in the pathway at the same point. The walkway was narrow too and negotiating that bend and bump while on a speeding bike took a fair amount of concentration and skill. We boys always shot our bikes across that walkway.
Several miles out Arroyo Road past the cattle ranches and old vineyards the VA hospital had been built in the shade where the creek twisted and turned this way and that near the base of the dam. There in the shade of several big old cottonwoods Arroyo del Valle slowed to languid pools. We would fish, swim, and swing on ropes hung from the trees out over the water. When hungry we would light a few sticks in the BBQ pits to warm a can of pork-n-beans or cook up a few hot dogs. And we could always dream of fur trapping while we chased the poor muskrat family that lived in the pools.
On the return trip, if we had a few extra coins in our pockets, we would stop at the miniature golf course near town and buy a bottle of soda from one of those old soda coolers with a row of bottles behind a narrow glass door.
One day, after returning to our ride, pop bottle in his left hand and right hand steering the bike, Barry misjudged that bridge walkway and the left side of his handlebars clipped the concrete car/walkway divider wrenching Barry’s front wheel 90 degrees to the left. The front of the tire hit the concrete wall and stopped. The rest of the bike kept going, rear wheel pitching up towards the leaning palm fronds from the old church grounds on the far side of the arroyo and launching Barry off of that bike like an arrow off a bow.
He turned a complete forward summersault while in flight.
But since gravity is a constant and soon regained control of Barry, he slammed down onto the railroad tie walkway with a resounding thump. Grinning all the time, because through it all; launch, somersault, rump-first recovery; as amazing as it might seem, he didn’t spill a single drop of soda from that bottle.
And then of course our tales wouldn’t be complete without the story about how it all began.
Dad didn’t believe in training wheels for bicycles. I always figured it was because he figured if we were so flawed that we couldn’t balance, he might as well know right away while he could still replace us.
So the day came for Barry to learn to ride his bike. And Dad made two strategic errors.
First, he started Barry off on the sidewalk there on Kennedy Street. That sidewalk had a distinct grade because Kennedy Street sloped downhill from Lee Avenue to Enos Way. Now, I am going to give dad the benefit of the doubt that he figured that this would help Barry balance by keeping the bike rolling forward. But it could also have been that whole “if he can’t get it right, better to have to replace him now” thing.
And second, Dad picked the sidewalk right there on Kennedy Street by the house, not only increasing the probability of whatever might go wrong damaging something Dad owned, but also assuring that Mom would see anything that did go wrong, and precluding Dad from making up a good story/excuse.
Dad and Barry walked up to the end of the block and Dad held the bike while Barry got on and balanced. Then bent-over, Dad started jogging forward while Barry tried to keep his balance, pedal, and steer. If you’ve ever tried to bend at the waste and run, downhill, while keeping your toes from being either run over, or caught up in spinning spokes, you can’t exactly blame Dad for the end results.
He stumbled and had to let go to make sure he didn’t pull Barry off of his precarious balance.
Barry shot forward, gaining speed with every revolution.
One hundred feet farther along, just as Barry was approaching the family driveway, he lost control, veered right, and plowed his bike into one of two freshly planted, spindly flowering plum trees that were Mom’s pride and joy.
“Were” begin the operative term because Barry and that bike clean sheared that first tree off right at ground level in the resulting crash.
After all the tears were dried, Barry’s and Mom’s, Dad convinced Barry to give it another try. So, back up to the top of the hill, poised on the same sidewalk, preliminary balance was achieved, and the bent over running shuffle dance was retried.
Predictably, Dad had to let go.
Predictably, Barry wobbled forward gaining speed.
Unpredictably, Barry didn’t lose control because he wobbled too far off balance.
However, he did lose control because he turned around to gleefully yell to Dad “I’m doing it, I’m doing it”; which was all the time he had before he veered right and sheared off Mom’s remaining flowering plumb tree.
But in life, it isn’t the inauspicious beginnings that count, its what you do and how you grow afterwards that’s important.
The other day, it was Mount Hamilton.
Tomorrow, the Death Ride.
© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen
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