It was a beautiful weekend for a bike ride. I was loading up the bikes for our family ride when Finn declared that his bike was way too small for him now.
I had noticed it was right on the edge but his buddies next door had an extra one they had been lending him and he was still riding his Spider Man bike from time to time. In the moment he couldn’t find the loaner.
I finally convince him to use his own bike because we were going to an area where the bike path was paved and it wouldn’t be challenging.
I raised the seat as high as it would go.
“This could be the last time you take this bike on a long ride,” I said.
He finally agreed to take it under that premise.
Once we got to the bike path he was a little quieter on the ride.
“This is embarrassing,” he said, as we started out, peddling a little slower than he normally does, “the bell doesn’t even work anymore!”
A few short years ago he was so excited to get that Spider Man bike. Now it was quickly falling out of favor.
“Look at this beautiful lake!” Erin said, attempting to steer his focus.
We didn’t get very far before he wanted to stop at one of the resting benches that are spaced along the path. We sat beside him.
“It is a little sad that it’s probably the last time I’ll take this bike on a long ride,” he said.
I felt a little guilty for planting that seed.
“I never want to get rid of this bike,” he said “even though it’s too small for me.”
I’m pretty sentimental myself, but the same time I wondered where we would store it. More than likely it would just mysteriously disappear at some point.
A couple of weeks ago Finn and his buddies found an old tricycle outside in the bushes at the bottom of a hill. A real sturdy one that looked like it was from the 1940s or earlier, when they made things like that to last. The seat had springs and bit of cloth clinging to it where you could tell it had been upholstered. The handles had metal rings on the ends where tassels were once attached and the solid rubber tires were imprinted with the words “Puncture proof”
I wondered when that trike found itself there in the bushes. When the kids who owned it stopped looking for it or more likely watched it rolled down the hill and then forgot about it when they were called in to dinner.
It took about ten minutes after the discovery of the tricycle, for Finn and his buddies to see how far it would roll down the hill again.
I fear Spider Man bike may suffer a similar fate. With a little coaxing maybe we can find it a new home.
Finn’s birthday is just around the corner and I think we have found what the big gift is going to be.
“I want one with sixteen gears!” he said as soon as we hinted that a new bike could be in his future.
What will he remember of Spider Man bike in a few years? Hopefully not the “embarrassing” part.
Maybe instead just a bit of the excitement that was on his face that Christmas morning a few years ago, still clearly preserved in my memory.
Or the first time he sped down the bike path ahead of us, ringing his bell over and over.
But then again, “sixteen gears” is pretty cool.