All I See Is Red

All the Ghost of Christmas Past shows me is red.  Red sells.  Red looks fast.  Red is…

RED!

My trike was red.  I remember it well.  Red paint, white stripes.  Solid rubber black wheels.  Just the thing to escape over to Jamie Figueroa’s.

My scooter was red.  It was a forerunner to the Razor.  Red platform, silver steerer.  Air filled white tires.  Stupid as it sounds, I was known as the Steve McQueen of Gnat Park.

My Big Wheel was red… I was like 14, way to old, but we’d found this giant hill planted with that crazy long grass.  First we bombed it on cardboard, but then we realized a Big Wheel was much more fun.  It lasted about a week.

My Schwinn Sting Ray started off red.  Probably put more miles on that bike than any other… rode it to school, to the store, to the beach, to my friends, to the orthodontist (hated that), to the huge drainage ditch we’d drop into and pop out of… and ride through in pitch black… and every Saturday morning to the new home construction sites with the terraced plots to jump off.  It died silver I think… we took those things apart and sanded and painted them constantly.

My Schwinn Le Tour was red.  This one was over $100, and I begged and begged for it.  I wanted to be able to ride the 8 miles from home to the tennis club, I wanted to get places.  I had no idea what “Le Tour” would come to mean later.  It was so light, and fast… even with my canvas back pack filled with tennis gear.

My final kid Christmas bike was not red.  The unicycle was silver.  I was 17, and wanted a toy.  Even though I had a red Honda Civic, I’d still ride the uni 2 miles to Sonora High School just because I could.

Pre-kids, the Trophy Wife surprised me with a red Cannondale… aluminum with giant tubes.  Rode that thing from Cat IV to III.  So fun.

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