Last Ride of the Year?

my 1995 Schwinn, right now,
waiting for the final ride of the year

I've got a feeling that this afternoon I will be taking my last bike ride of the season. The weather looks decent--and my weather apps say it will become somewhat indecent in the ensuing days. No surprise: It's almost November in northeastern Ohio.

I haven't ridden as much this year as I have in previous years. Not sure why. But a week or so ago, when we were having all that warm weather around here, I started up again, rode pretty much every day, wondering all the while why I had stopped doing so.

I first learned to "stay up" on a bike back in the early 1950s in Amarillo, Tex., where we lived for a couple of years during the Korean War (Dad had been called back to active duty, was stationed at Amarillo Air Force Base).

I remember the thrill of staying up that first time, but I also remember that I'd neglected to learn how to stop and get off the bike. Oops. But I steered into the most lush lawn I could find (not easy to find in the Texas panhandle), slowed, crash-landed. I eventually figured out how to slow, stop, dismount without a crash. Quick learner, I!

Between 2001-2011, when I was teaching at Western Reserve Academy--a few blocks from our house--I routinely rode back and forth to school. I was part-time and so took the trip several times during the day. The bike was part of my ... persona. (I don't know why, but I've never liked that word--used it only reluctantly here.)

When I retired (spring 2011), I still rode pretty much every decent day, spring through fall, from our house down to Starbucks. It's not a totally dangerous route. A bit of it I can do on a bike path. But I've learned that to live I need to obey one very basic rule: Look out for motor vehicles because they are not looking out for you. So ... I assume that every car, truck, and whatever does not see me. And, so far, I've remained alive. (Don't want to speak too soon: I'm riding this afternoon!)

When the fall weather makes its final turn into darkness and damp and yuck each year, I put my bike in the basement for the winter--always a sad time. Will I get to bring it up again? My health (as regular visitors here know) is now iffy, to say the least; I will turn 73 next month. I've exceeded my three-score-and-ten.

Psalms is rather blunt about that number, by the way. Here it is (King James Version):

Psalm 90:10 King James Version

10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Well, I'm not too sure I'm going to be flying away--maybe a down elevator is more accurate? But I like to think I'll roll away, on my bike, and that I will not crash-land.