8 | NOVEMBER 24 • 2022 

W

ith the irresistible 
allure of the 
automobile to a 
teenage boy, my bicycle spent 
a lot of time in my garage 
after I turned 16. Even later, 
when I went off 
to Ann Arbor 
for college, 
without a car, I 
didn’t bring my 
bike to school. 
I think bicycles 
were seen as 
“high school,” 
which was the ultimate put 
down for a “cool college man.”
A few years later, once we 
started our family, I found 
that the demands of work 
and parenting young children 
did not leave a lot of time or 
opportunity for bike riding. 
When I was 35, it was a 
challenging year (sounds 
like a Sinatra song). Out of 
nowhere, I developed severe 
back problems, leading to 
pain in my legs and back. 
Eventually, I had to undergo 
surgery to decompress my 
spine. My bicycle, waiting 
patiently in my garage, 
suddenly became a key ally 
in my coping with the back 
problems that continued to be 
a strong presence in my life, 

even after two laminectomies. 
In addition, I became good 
friends with the stationary 
bicycles at the JCC. 
Riding my bicycle outdoors 
began to be a much-favored 
form of exercise compared 
to a stationary bike going 
nowhere slowly. At least I got 
to feel the breeze and enjoy 
the scenery. 
My bicycle rides became a 
wonderful respite, a chance 
for clearing my head and 
feeling the joy of a good 
workout. However, this being 
Michigan, outdoor biking 
was not exactly a year-round 
activity. 
Meanwhile, back at the 
ranch, my kids were being 
born and growing up. Which 
meant, among many other 
things, teaching each of them 
how to ride a two-wheeler. 
This was not an easy part 
of parenting for a guy with 
chronic back issues. Holding 
onto the back of a bike and 
running was not exactly 
in my repertoire. I know I 
had a lot of help from my 
wife and neighborhood 
friends. Like many of my 
unpleasant memories, I have 
blanked most of that out. But 
somehow, my kids all learned 

to ride a bike, with the benefit 
of my cheerleading, if not 
much else. 
Which leads to my 
memories of bicycle trips 
with my kids down a dirt 
road not far from our home 
in Southfield. I have idealized 
those outings through my 
retrospectoscope. In my 
memory, my kids were excited 
to ride with Dad on a trip to 
the video store (remember 
those?) or for a lunch at our 
local Coney Island. In reality, 
my kids probably griped about 
why we were biking when we 
could get there in five minutes 
by car. But in my memory, we 
are sharing a fun adventure 
and my kids aren’t kvetching 
or arguing with each other or 
me.
When we moved to West 
Bloomfield in the early 
’90s, I discovered the West 
Bloomfield walking (and 
biking) path, which could be 
entered after only a short bike 
ride from our house. When 
I went east, I often managed 
to end up at the ice cream 
store where I would justify a 
moose tracks cone, based on 
the calories I had burned off 
in getting there. I also took 
many bikes rides to the place 
that I still call “Our Last Great 
Bargain,” otherwise known as 
the West Bloomfield Library. 
(Thank you, Ben Franklin!) 
And when you add a bike ride 
to the outing, well, life just 
doesn’t get much better than 
that. 

A BAD FALL
Now I skip ahead to the most 
momentous bicycle ride of 
my life. I’m talking about a 
bike ride in the park while 
I was visiting my son Jon 
and his future wife, Alexis, 
in Oakland, California. This 
was the last day of our trip; 

in retrospect, I should have 
asked my friends who ski 
about the curse of the last 
run of the day! Anyway, I was 
riding very calmly on a park 
bike path, when I turned a 
corner and was faced with 
someone going the opposite 
way, headed right at me. I was 
on a rented unfamiliar bike, 
and I froze in my seat and fell 
hard onto the asphalt.
I’ve had my share of falls, 
but I immediately knew that 
something felt weird, that I 
shouldn’t even try to stand up. 
A young woman stopped and 
held my hand while someone 
else agreed to return my bike 
to the rental place nearby. 
Another fellow called 911. 
In a twist of fate, the kind 
woman who stayed with me 
turned out to be the daughter 
of the woman who owned 
Gayle’s chocolates in Royal 
Oak, a native Detroiter. 
Then I had to make the 
most difficult call, the one 
to my wife. I told her I was 
“hurt pretty badly, but okay,” 
whatever I meant by that. She 
began to figure out a plan, as 
she always does. Fast forward 
to an ambulance ride to the 
nearest appropriate hospital, 
an X-ray which showed a hip 
fracture and, later, another 
test which showed that I 
had osteoporosis of my hips. 
After a long night, I had hip 
surgery the next day, having 
fortuitously been assigned 
to an excellent surgeon who 
used the newest techniques. 
Post-op, we checked into a 
hotel which was handicapped-
accessible and four days later, 
we somehow flew back home.
I won’t bore you with the 
details of my recovery other 
than to mention that my wife 
is eligible for sainthood. But 
this story is about me and 
my bike. Not surprisingly to 

Jeff London

PURELY COMMENTARY

essay
Me And My Bike, 
 Part Two

