In an effort to prepare for September’s bicycle tour I mixed in a bit of unconventional training this weekend pedaling a tandem, alone, from West Bend to Milwaukee.  I bought the bike for my parents, and it’s a bit of an antique.  The rusty orange colored single speed has coaster breaks and the bike weighs about 75 lbs.  Pump up the tires and the rig glides, like an anvil on tires.  A chipped off license plate sticker from the City of Milwaukee reads "Expires April 30, 1979."   Shy a vehicle large enough to haul the Schwinn Twinn; I decided to move it myself.

I set out at noon on Saturday.  The tour, which normally takes me two hours, on my 21-speed road bike, took about three hours.  By the time I made it to the Whitefish Bay Public Library I was ready to apply the booster rocket:  my 7-year-old nephew climbed on board and we pedaled the rest of the way to my parents’ house.

After the surprise was unveiled I handed the keys to the orange blossom special over to my 83-year-old father.  He climbed on board, a bit unsteady, amidst the cheers of eight grandchildren and the vocal concerns of my siblings.   
 
My dad is obviously aging.  His dexterity is antiquated; a circus bear on a tricycle had better technique.  My dad’s memory has also reached a "sometimes" status.  I had attached a small compass labeled GPS on the handlebars.  “Grandparent Positioning System,” I told my sisters with a grin.  My siblings found little humor in the device.  I also bought my parents helmets.  My brother John said, “Old people don’t hit their heads, they break their hips.”  I told him he could be in charge of finding hip pads.  John ran inside to hunt for the parent’s insurance policy.

After a brief solo spin, my dad expressed confidence that his partner in crime could try the back seat.  We needed to get out the wrenches and lower the orange and white seat for my mom who is 5 ft. tall and constantly shrinking.  

A teetering start and my sisters picked up their children, moving them to the safety of higher ground.  My sister Nancy, the nurse, yelled for them to wait while she went inside to grab the phone.   Nancy admitted nobody was calling, she had just dialed 9-1 …  FEMA would be impressed with her dedication to emergency preparedness.

Stumbling to a start the Steffes parents slowly built steam.  My dad riding like he was sitting atop his old Farmall tractor.  My mother, clutching the sparkly plastic handle grips, her hunched over body completely engulfing the orange saddle.  My brother, who gave up on his search for insurance policies, was now racing to borrow wrenches and take the training wheels off his daughter’s two-wheeler and transfer them to the tandem.
 
Moving down the block, my parents grinned and nodded at runners and walkers who passed them by.  The managed a U-turn at the end of the street and pulled back in the driveway sweating.  “Give us a couple of days and we’ll be pulling even, like a good team of horses,” said my dad, who grew up on a farm in St. Cloud.

Inside the house kids played, we drank lemonade and my dad asked more then once how I got the bike and how much he owed me.  “It’s a gift, Dad, from the kids,” I said feeling his reluctance to accept such a treasure.  

My father was the one who got me into bikes.  When we were kids he built a baby seat bike.  It was a blue, lady’s Schwinn with four bicycle seats mounted to the frame.  A seat for each of his four little girls.  One seat in front of the handle bars, one wedged behind the handlebars and two seats behind the driver.  The caboose was a piece of wood, cut to look like a bike seat but shy any cushion.  The kid in diapers was the one who got the splintery, back row assignment.

Off we’d go on a Saturday afternoon, my dad in his dark socks and fishing cap and the girls with smiles and ponytails for protection.  I never remember falling or crashing; we had complete trust in the driver.  The incident everyone remembered was being pulled over by the cops in Shorewood.  “The nerve of you, breaking all the rules and riding RIGHT IN FRONT of the police station,” scolded the officer to my father.  As the story goes, my dad couldn’t figure out what rules he was breaking and simply pedaled away telling the dumbfounded officer, saying “So arrest me.”

As the tandem party wrapped up and everyone packed to leave my mom ran to show us her latest discovery.  She came back with a DVD.  “Have you guys seen this??” she said holding up the box for the 2004 movie "Napoleon Dynamite."  “This is the best movie,” she laughed about her new find.

My brother shook his head and sighed in disgust, “I better find those hip pads soon before they decide to take that bike over some sweet jumps."