LK: What was your first bike?

BH: My first bike was a bike that was passed around the neighboorhood. My parents did not believe in training wheels and apparently at that time neither did I. I was four years old and it was deemed the “Monkey Bike”. It was a red Schwinn fixy with solid rubber tires. The wheels were probably 14″ or 16″. I can vageuly remember zipping around on that thing for a year or so. When it was time to pass the bike on to another kid in the neighborhood I picked out a yellow and black huffy with an eagle imprinted on the sadle.

LK: What’s your favorite (most memorable) bicycle story?

BH:  I believe my most memorable bicycle story is one that does not even have a bicycle in the story and, perhaps I am not even the main character but, nevertheless it is something that I think about when I am totally blown during an endurance ride or have nothing left to make it over the next hill. I was very young, at the oldest 3 years old. When my mother would change my brothers diapers, she would put him up on a changing table in his nursery. I would go in there with her and watch what was going on. After she got him all cleaned up, she would do excercises with him. The only thing I can remember from those exercises was her taking his feet as he lay on his back and, making his legs do pedal strokes. The whole time she would be saying “pedal the bike, pedal the bike”. I can only assume that since she did that with him, she probably did that with me also. Those words echo in my head when I have nothing left to throw at the mountain. They provide me with the encouragement I need to carry on when my body has nothing left.

B. Hann rides the Norris trails near Knoxville, TN

LK: Why do you like to ride a bike?
BH: Riding allows me to maintain a healthy lifestyle, harvest certain amounts of adrenaline that remind me I am still alive and, asserts that fact that no matter what happens in life, I will still have something to do that makes me happy. If the whole world begins to fall apart into a state of chaos, the bicycle will not only be there as a source of enjoyment but, be an essential survival tool. A man/woman only needs a few things to survive, a bike, a rouge hoe and a file to sharpen the hoe. Once you have transportion and a sharp implement, you can conquer the world.