Bike to school week

No day could be more conducive to commuting by bike than this sparkling May day, the first of Bike to Work week.

My wife rode her new bike off to work at 7:15 a.m. She has to cover five miles or a little more to get to her job. My 8-year-old daughter and I rolled out of the garage at 8:08 a.m. for our 18-or-so minute ride to her school. This was our 10th trip of the year, so we know the typical duration of the ride.

We stopped to pick up a penny on the street near our house. “Good luck for a week,” my optimistic child said. Our chug up 25th Street hill, a 100-foot elevation gain, took us three minutes. After that, the ride was easy.

I ride an old garage-sale mountain bike. To its seat post is attached a trail-a-bike. That contraption is a complete bike that lacks only a front wheel. The rider can pedal along with the adult up front, and her add-on bike even has gears so that she can adjust her pedaling cadence to our speed.

We arrived at school a few minutes before the bell. Then I just turned the long three-wheeled bike around and rode off to do another errand before heading back to my home-office job.

Bob Replinger

Rock Island