Like Children Again

Schwinn Meridian: the front tire kept rubbing against the
fender, which I eventually removed.

Though we are fortunate to possess fairly good health into our 60's, the handwriting is on the wall: our once proudly-independent selves will decline to mewling helplessness. Safety becomes more important than power and speed. We'll be like children, minus their energy and recuperative powers, again.

And so it was that I spent six hours assembling a Schwinn Adult Tricycle. Gone are the days of shifting into high gear along the biking paths. "Triking" at a walking pace is the new speed limit.

Being a novice assembler, I took my time putting the tricycle together. The trickiest parts were tightening the chain and adjusting the brakes and cables so that there was no friction while moving, with only a light squeeze necessary to begin the slowdown. The last touch was putting in the decorative front fender (picture), which despite numerous adjustments kept rubbing against the tire. Finally, I just took it off.

Various family members pronounced the ride "fun", so my inefficient labors were in the end successful.

BTW, your humble blogger had difficulty riding the tricycle! In bike riding one of the first lessons one learns is to "counter-steer" (i.e., when going left, turn the wheel to the right--on paper it sounds odd but is necessary to retain balance; after a few minutes one does this without thinking about it).

Counter-steering is precisely the wrong move when trike riding. If you are veering right and want to go left, don't turn the front wheel right as you would with a bike. I went off into the bushes several time until I realized that to go where I wanted, just point the wheel in that direction, as any 4-year-old knows.

We are going to be helpless as children again, but we may not be as smart.