Three Stories about Three Bikes
In the words of Dr. Seuss, “Oh the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.” Join us this week for a few stories about bikes, and the lessons they taught me about life.
Stories are our lives in language. Welcome to the Love Your Story podcast. I’m Lori Lee and I’m excited about for our future together of telling stories, evaluating our own stories, and lifting ourselves and others to greater places because of our control over our stories. This podcast is about empowerment and giving you, the listener, ideas to work with in making your stories work for you. The power of story serves you best when you know how to use it.
A bike is a little like a dog. You are companions. Together you go places, you see things, and though you hopefully aren’t walking your bike too often, you are taking each other out and about for a little bit of exercise and scenery. A bike needs a ride like a dog needs a walk—okay, granted, I’m stretching the simile here. The bike needs TLC: oil and wipe-downs after a muddy day out. It is through this relationship, this closeness, that I can tell you some stories of exploration, escape, and thrill. Though the bike wasn’t always the same, it is the bike beneath me that allows for the adventure, the experience, and the lesson.
The Traveler’s Bike
Do you believe that if you think about something with enough intent that it will eventually come to you? After my divorce, I watched the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun and fell in love with the idea of Italy. I’ve learned that I can’t travel to new places without a mountain to climb, a trail to bike, or a river to paddle. For me to truly feel a place, I need to hear the voice of God in the natural environment-I need to sweat and interact with the land, and so I began to picture myself biking across the Tuscan countryside. I didn’t picture the details of how it would come about, just the nodding yellow sunflowers, the ancient olive orchards, the expanse of leafy vineyards, the rolling Tuscan hills, and century-old, rock farm houses that dot the crests in the photos of Tuscany.
Before long my chance manifested in a writing assignment for a magazine, and I ran my hands along the walls of the Tuscan Brunello wine cellars, sat at authentic Italian7-course dinners, took elementary language lessons from our Italian guides, enjoyed Italian cooking lessons from Italian locals, and took in the IlGran Fondo de Brunello (which I’m probably totally slaughtering the pronunciation)– a 36 kilometer mountain bike race whose 1021 participants that year, consisted almost completely of men. And instead of getting a t-shirt at registration you get a bottle of wine—so very Italian.
This was Italy. The cars so tiny, the washing machines so tiny. The old stone cities so empty. The countryside so rich and vast and beautiful. This was definitely not America. But, American women cluster the Italian kitchen in our old rented stone farmhouse. We slice tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, beets, parmesan, basil, and cucumber. The soundtrack to Mama Mia plays behind us while Federico Marconi makes pizza, and the deep, reverberating hum of the women all talking at once takes stage front. Corks pop and trays of food are laden with the colors of red tomatoes, white mozzarella, green pesto, and golden breads. One woman wears a t-shirt with a bike across the chest, another has wet hair from her shower following the daily ride along the roads that pass vineyards drooping deep purple grapes that await their transformation into Brunello. We dance, swing our hips to the music while we work.
Each morning we bike down a steep gravel road that leads from our stone apartments, past carefully groomed vineyards, to the paved road below that winds through the Tuscan countryside. We bike to thermal spas, to old, stone, neighboring cities, to café’s...
