Free Rider

 

I grew up in the skinny part of West San Jose between Cupertino to the north and Saratoga to the south. Our street was off of Johnson Avenue, which ran the length of this section of West San Jose. I looked it up on Google Maps and it is 1.2 miles down Johnson from the Cupertino border to the Saratoga border.

When I first learned how to ride a bike, that might as well have been 1.2 light years. Partly because it was a whole other town and partly because you’d have to cross a major road, my biking around would often take me up to these borders but not past. To go past felt like being unfathomably far from home.

One day, I was feeling extra bold and I decided to ride the length of Johnson Ave and cross into Saratoga. It was exhilarating to cross this previous barrier I’d erected in my head and to explore a part of the world I’d never been to. I’ll never forget that feeling.

I share this anecdote to connect it my current love for exploring cities on bike. Three or four times a year, I take a day off from work and kids and go to some city to putter around on bike. I seldom make plans to meet up with anyone because I want complete autonomy to go where the winds take me. It is incredibly restful and liberating to do this.

Last month, our local Y’s pool was closed for a week for maintenance. I took the opportunity to replace my usual pre-dawn swim workouts with bike rides. I knew these rides would take me back to COVID days, when the Y and everything else was closed so the only out-of-house exercise I could do was run or bike. It was only a couple of years ago but it was the same routes and the same time of day, so indeed it did take me back (and, at that hour, there was similarly not that many people or cars out, so it really was quite similar).

What caught me by surprise was how it tapped into, if not the specific memory of biking Johnson Avenue into Saratoga, then a general feeling of childhood delight and carefree wonder. I have many responsibilities and worries in my life that are hard to fully shut off no matter what I’m doing to unwind. But riding a bike seems to connect me to a sense of being present and being free that few other activities afford. You can see why I organize my days off around riding around a city. And maybe I should work some more bike rides into my workout regimen too.