Gary's 3-speed English racer vs.
my Schwinn
By Anthony Buccino
It was the ultimate showdown, |
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On both sides of that Gless Avenue there were about a dozen
two-family houses and not all of them had kids who rode their bikes
in the street, on sidewalks that lifted near big trees, or up and
down smooth and bumpy driveways.
In baseball season, we took the cards of players we didn’t
know and used a few of mom’s clothespins to make our bikes sound
like motorcycles.
We always had to see who could put the most cards on the
fender, how much noise you could make and how long they would stay
on when you raced up and down those driveways.
Gary lived in the corner house at Meacham and Gless,
upstairs from his grandparents and an uncle who may have been a
secret agent or something cool like that. He carried on like a spy,
ignoring us kids and driving his car into the garage, scooting in
the house, then getting in his car to zip somewhere to spy on
someone important.
Gary, who was a month or so younger than me, had the first
English Racer on the block. It was black and had very thin tires,
like an English mustache, and handlebars that curled under like a
Frenchman’s mustache.
But the weirdest thing about that foreign-made bike was that
the English people put the brakes on the handlebars.
All the rest of the kids’ bikes in the neighborhood had foot
brakes that you stomped with your heel and skidded to a stop. And,
on our bikes, you could stomp on either right or
left pedal to make the wheels stop.
But on that crazy English Racer the right hand stopped the
front wheel and the left handle stopped the rear wheel, or something
like that. I never could remember. And stomping on the pedal did
nothing but freewheel backwards.
Riding an English Racer, with its smaller seat and attached
saddlebag, always had a certain Carnaby Street
panache that seemed to say you were hip. The
Beatles had invaded and the Rolling Stones were rocking, so it was
at the vanguard of biking to roll on an English Racer.
We'd always fight over which was faster, my one-speed
Schwinn with its thick tires or Gary's three-speed English Racer.
His bike had a gadget on the handlebar that you could hit with your
finger and it would change up the gears on the chain you pedaled to
make the bike roll.
First gear was the easiest to pedal, almost too easy,
because you pedaled a lot but didn’t go very far. It was supposed to
be good for biking up hills. Second gear was tougher than first
gear, and you could really book if you put some effort into it.
Third gear was the toughest. You had to work to pedal but that gave
the bike more oomph and you could really put on some distance.
Give me my Schwinn with 26-inch wheels, foot brakes, wide
seat, kick stand, fenders, and while it was new, in the hand grips,
those streamers twirling in the draft I made when I raced along up
and down Gless Avenue.
At the dead end part of our street, a staunch three-beam,
striped barricade blocked cars from driving into the fields and
across the pipeline that crisscrossed under the high-tension power
lines. The barricade crossed at about a thirty-degree angle as did
the pavement. There’s a small gap where it ended and where the field
started.
When we were younger, nobody was supposed to ride your bike
without asking. So, when one of my cousins from next door jumped on
and took my bike for a spin, he said it was okay because the
battered twenty-inch maroon bike had been his before it was handed
down to me.
If a cousin, or one of the older girls from across the
street took my old bike and rode it to the next house’s driveway and
back, I was the one screaming blue murder and chasing the rider as
if he or she stole it and was never going to bring it back, and it
didn’t matter that I wasn’t riding it when he or she took it, it’s
my bike and nobody else can ride it unless I say so.
So, of course, one sunny afternoon, Gary and I decided to
swap bikes for a turn up and down the block. He’d ride my Schwinn
and I’d ride his English racer. We’d go from his house at one end to
the barricade, turn around and come back and we’d see who was
fastest.
We were off! I kicked his racer into second gear and pushed
my way down the street. Gary wrestled my monster rig and gave it all
he had to race me, neck and neck, to the end of the street and back.
We dodged parked cars, and little kids running out to see what was
causing the blur of shadows whisking in the breeze.
It took all I could do not to panic, but I screamed like
crazy and used all new words to describe Gary stupid brakes that
didn't work.
I managed to steer his bike to the end of the barricade and
crash into the end of the curb and land unceremoniously in the
weeds.
Gary checked out his bike. It was okay.
I brushed off the grass and rubbed the sting out of the
parts of my body that landed firs. I was okay.
I took back my bike and Gary took back his. We'd finish that
race some other day. From Greetings from Belleville, New Jersey, Collected writings by Anthony Buccino Gary's English Racer vs. My Schwinn first published on Belleville-Nutley Patch, June 10, 2011 © 2011 by Anthony Buccino You might also like: Bad Haircut: Stories from the Seventies by Tom Perrotta |
ANTHONY'S WORLDAnthony Buccino
Essays, photography, military history, moreNew Jersey author Anthony Buccino's stories of the 1960s, transit coverage and other writings earned four Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism awards. Permissions & other snail mail: PO Box 110252 Nutley NJ 07110 Follow Anthony Buccino |
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