Well, it finally happened. It had to, really, what with all this technology these days and other things we didn’t know about, like fitness and training and competence. Somebody finally broke our record.
I’m talking, of course, about the land speed record for the world’s fastest human on a bicycle. It took a long time for somebody to beat us, but someone finally did, and there’s a video to prove it.
It was broken this week by a 45 year old mother of three when she pedaled her bike to an astonishing 296 km/hr (which for you fossils out there is 183.9 miles per hour)! Denise Mueller-Korenek put on a protective eight pound (42 kilogram) kevlar suit and a motorcycle helmet and broke a record that had been in place for twenty years (twenty years metric).
Ok, so she had a highly technical and very expensive custom made bicycle, and she “drafted” behind a race car dragster at the Bonneville Salt Flats, and all we had was a three speed with ape hangers and a banana seat. Oh, and also, we had Michener Hill.
I can still remember that golden bicycle standing – no, floating – in a gilded beam of light in the window of Horsley’s Hardware downtown. It was nothing like I’d ever seen, and nothing like any of the bikes my reprobate gang of friends zoomed around on. It had TEN SPEEDS and it had these handlebars that curled underneath, like the horns of a mountain goat. I found out later that those handlebars actually were officially called “Ram’s Horns”).
And it was painted gold. A magical golden ten speed ram’s horn handle-barred steed that was calling my name.
I won’t go into all the gory details of how I cleverly wangled Mom and Dad into buying that golden bicycle for my birthday, suffice to say it involved a lot of promises to give up half my allowance, take out the garbage twice a week instead of once and to “pay back” the full amount someday. And we all know when “someday” comes.
I put on many happy miles on that two wheeled stallion, and I only crashed a couple of times – like the time the neighborhood mental Cocker Spaniel attacked my pant leg as I pedaled by.
I loved that bike – for a while. And then I didn’t.
Ahhh, the fickleness of youth. Suddenly, ten speed ram’s horns bikes weren’t “radical” anymore. So my bestie John and I took that beautiful bike into his Dad’s shop, tore it apart, put on ape hangers (look it up, youngsters!), a banana seat and made it a three speed. Oh, and we (John) painted it black. Jet black.
My Mom and Dad just shook their heads. (I was kinda spoiled, as you may have guessed).
And it was on our two wheeled three speed, ape hanger, banana seat rocket ships that my buddies and I pedaled our little butts off straight down the steepest hill in town. Over and over again.
Michener Hill. Not the other mis-named “Michener Hill” over by the Comp, the straight down, narrow Ross Street hill. We didn’t have things like radar, or stop watches or “brains” in those days, but we all agreed that we had the record for the fastest bicycles in the world, flying by Coronation Park, bugs in our teeth, wind in our Brylcreem, hanging on for dear life.
And now a lady has broken our record, and good for her. But I’m pretty sure, she didn’t have Michener Hill, and she didn’t have the world’s fastest friends.