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My friend, Martin Dare, is such an avid bicyclist – he has many cool two wheelers

 

 

 

I speak the truth on this one. Really.

Martin Dare and I have been friends since kindergarten and the great thing is that we’ve stayed in touch, well, over the decades.

As teenagers, we rode our bicycles over the Pacific mountains from what is popularly known these days as Silicon Valley to Sunset State Beach, which is south of Santa Cruz, Calif.

Good times, as the saying goes.

He’s continued with his bicycling ways, which is admirable.

In fact, he’s such an avid bike rider and he has so many cool two wheelers that it’s like he has a small museum – and that he’s the curator.

On his Web site, he’s done a nice job of giving a little history behind each human-powered vehicle that he has, including an orange one with Campagnolo parts from the 1970s. 

As kids, we first rode on BMXs, then moved up to those single-gear beach cruiser bikes, which we used to deliver newspapers.

I finally moved up to a touring bicycle and then a mountain bike. He graduated to some serious racing bicycles and even rode with many clubs, including one when he studied at the University of California at Berkeley.

One of our high school classmates - or possibly his brother - took a welding class at a local community college. They somehow found metal tubes and made their own recumbent and versions are pretty popular these days.

It was heavy but we liked the low-slung design. We figured it could go faster since it was lower to the ground. But I think the steel added weight.

As I recall, Martin and I talked about building our own.

Or perhaps, it was just a thought that entered my head.

In any event, he and I used to read Bicycling Magazine and studied all those cool fairings that the one- and two-person human powered vehicles had.

I remember reading that in time tests, those low-to-the-ground vehicles with big cranks and gears could go pretty fast.

We were in awe.

I always wondered if those human-powered vehicles could rival the speed of a car.

In any event, Martin, Bill, my other friends and I would find the best hills or mountains in our area.

We’d pedal up and then we’d bomb down them.

On some trips, we’d stop off at a nearby reservoir and go for a swim.