“Faster daddy, faster!” That is the call I hear from the child carrier on the back of my new bike. This past weekend, my wife and I took the plunge and picked up a used bike carrier and two new bikes for us. On Sunday morning, we hauled everything to a large secluded parking lot in Montpelier and spent the better part of two hours doing laps. 

The 3-year-old in the child carrier enjoyed the experience as much, if not more, than the rest of us. Calvin, sitting high in his perch, offered me constant encouragement throughout the morning as we whittled away the hours in that parking lot. Up one side, down the other, through the parking garage and back. His frequent outbursts were not all I needed to keep up the pace, but made the task all that much more fun.

I haven’t had a bicycle for probably 16 years and haven’t regularly ridden one for probably 20—ever since I got my license and first car. On occasion here at Small Dog I will borrow a co-workers to tool around the parking lot and quickly down Route 100 and back. Bike riding was done be a younger me not just for transport, but also for fun. Long summer evenings were spent avoiding work on the farm and biking up and down the local back roads with a group of friends.

“Go down that big hill! It’ll be really fast.” Calvin, the co-pilot, has an eye for adventure. His eyes may be a little bigger than what my rusty thighs and calves can handle at this point. We’ll be doing a lot of biking for the rest of this summer. I am sure that we will stay to quiet parking lots and empty back roads for quite some time to come but the experience will be well worth it. 

Just a little story here as Vermont experiences summer weather for seemingly the first time this season…

Enjoy this issue, and keep in touch.

Jon
jon@smalldog.com