Proud Pop.

Twenty years ago, I told my oldest daughter, Anna, she couldn't ride her bike unless she wore a helmet. I had given her a girl's Raleigh Capri drop-bar bike, and had set her loose on the neighborhood (she already knew how to ride). But the helmet edict came from me sometime later. I believed what I was reading without investigating the claims, that death lurked, waiting to pounce on America's children (why would researchers lie about safety? not for "grants", surely?).

Faced with my edict, she chose to quit riding. I won. My will triumphed.

Twenty years later, now living in a small town south of Austin, with a house and a husband, and two small boys, she is in school again at Texas State University in San Marcos (the university formerly known as Southwest Texas State University). She lives 13 miles from campus, and wants to start riding her bike to school, and to town for grocery items. She asked me to keep an eye open for a good used drop-bar bike for under $150 (Austin's not a good place to look for such).

I found, and bought for her ("Happy Birthday!"), a nice aluminum Trek 1220 from about 1998... with Bar-Cons! I ride an old Trek 1500 (1996? time flies), using the same geometry and cast lugs (carbon fibre main tubes), back from when Trek was an American-made Bicycle Company. We'll get a good rack, a lock, some other small items (maybe a crash hat), and away she goes.

I hope she'll take LAB's Road 1 course, but I'm not pushing it, or her. And not a word about you know what.


(This has been cross-posted from CycleDallas.org. The power of pride... in your kids.)