Emmy: A Love Story
Emmy is a mutt, born of a mélange of international parts: French saddle, Japanese brakes, British frame, and one American dad who in the 80’s got into bikes, and rode over the Rockies one summer with my great Uncle Al following him in a Buick. Dad was in his early fifties when he started biking, and now almost eighty, he says with uncharacteristic candor that biking saved his life during the years of his divorce from my mom. Dad built a number of bikes, and after he got the hang of things he decided to build me one. “What color do you want?” he asked me when I was about thirteen. “White,” I said—dreaming of a bedroom with white carpet (“Impractical” my mother said). I think he hoped I would love biking as much as he did, but I was an overweight teenager who had just changed schools since my parents couldn’t afford private school anymore. I was lonely, miserable, and angry about the divorce, and I did not want to “Go for a ride.” Not for twenty years. * * * Biking is all about momentum. Once you are moving, you have a commitment to keep moving. It is unspoken, but it is there, and you feel it in your hands when you must brake to slow down, in your feet when you brace yourself to decelerate, in the disappointed resistance of your entire body when the promise of moving forward (which you have taken for granted as endless) has been rudely interrupted by a stop sign, or red light, or traffic, or—joyfully—by countless fuzzy brown and black caterpillars crossing a grey asphalt road between a wooded area and a corn field on the Mississippi river trail. Some things warrant stopping for, even if you don’t have to. * * * Emmy is a pearly platinum color, with white brake cables, and got a professional paint job in the varnish room at my Dad’s factory. Dad taught himself to sew in order to fashion white suede to cover the handlebars with neat crossed stitches. Unfortunately, the suede was too delicate, but he tried again with thicker leather and that lasted until 2011, when I finally replaced my handlebars and had them wrapped with cork. She sat nameless for years in basements, on back porches, in storage lockers; was subjected to floods, cobwebs and a complete lack of attention. When I decided to start biking in 2007, I was pretty well convinced she was a goner. Everyone had hybrids, and I assumed that with all the broken glass and potholes, that’s what you’d want to ride in the city, but money was tight, so I figured I had better take her into Boulevard Bikes to see if she was salvageable. Kevin, the owner, came over to look at her, and within a few minutes, so did the other two guys. “Where’d you get this bike?” they asked. “My dad built it,” I said. They nodded impressed, and wanted to know more. “You gotta ask your dad what the frame is,” Kevin said, and I nodded, proud that anyone seemed so interested in her. Later, I called my Dad in New Mexico. “Tell them…” my Dad spoke molasses slow “…that the name of the company is Holdsworth, and the frame is chom-i-um molyb-denum.” When I told Kevin this, he nodded sagely. And after a tune up and air in the tires (and for the next three years Kevin kept saying “You should probably replace these soon…well, maybe next year.”) Emmy was ready to go. * * * The first time was probably something like this: there you are, hanging on your crotch on the seat, the bike rocking beneath you like an empty canoe on a choppy bay, and someone—in my case, my dad—is behind you, his hand firmly gripping the back of your seat while he awkwardly jogs, ready to launch you down the block. The end of the street is approaching at a rate of speed which makes you suddenly aware of how large the world is, and how quickly you might leave it. You grip the handlebars for dear life. You grin into the wind that is created from the pushing even if this grin is to bare the speed, the speed! And this is what you wanted, isn’t it? This speed? This hurry, this getting there, getting somewhere, getting there faster, and oh jeez, it’s all yours now, and now you have it, momentum, but no control. He has let go. You are careening and he may yell “Pedal!” and it takes a moment to figure out what this word means exactly. Pedal. Petal? A flower in bloom? The petals blossoming outward, spinning, then turning and—oh!—pedal! And your feet push and there is a terrifying moment where there is no resistance, just air between your push and the pedals spinning, and for a second you feel a sense of freedom and horror. The handlebars are so sensitive to your gripping hands, the slightest touch rippling the bike’s balance in such a way you are certain you are a split second from crashing, and then, then, your pedals catch up with the rotation of the tires. You are pedaling. You are powering the bike. You are moving and you might just never stop. It is well past dark when they finally convince you to get off the bike, knees and elbows scraped and bloodied from falls, band-aids rippling loose like white flags of surrender. You cannot make out the difference between shadows from the streetlights and solid objects, and you are too tired for a bath, too sore to change yourself into pajamas, but you fall asleep grinning, still moving, still moving. * * * Biking is all about momentum. Now we have a commitment, Emmy and me. Some things warrant stopping for, even when I don’t have to, and sometimes what’s important is to just keep going.
