Growing up in Iona there was no public transportation, which means that our only way of going anywhere, was walking, biking or by car.  Oh, there were horses, but since we didn’t own one, that was not an option for us.  Giving that none of us kids were old enough to drive, that meant we did a lot of walking and biking.  Our parents, with their limited time to drive us, were not reliable.  We had to wait for them to have the time and the desire to drive us to the place we wanted to go.  As children with short attention spans, this did not work well.  So, we had the other two options, walk or ride our bike.  Biking seemed to be the best and fasted option and so we all learned to ride bikes at a young age.  I have heard a story about one of us, who shall go nameless, that would actually take the car and drive with friends, prior to receiving that coveted drivers license.  But, that is a story for another day.

Doug and I learned all we could about our bikes and kept them in the best of conditions.  We made many trips on our bikes to various places, including our cousins’ place, the Simmons, who lived up on a foothill.  The best way to test the condition of each of our bikes, was to see who could coast the fastest and furthest coming down the hill.  To this end, Doug and I would pull the wheel bearings and put grease on them, hoping to improve the spin of the wheel.  We would come down the hill at an excelated speed, as fast as our wheels could turn.  In fact, pedalling did no good because we were going faster than our legs could pedal.  It was exhilarating to say the least.  I remember one time as we were coming down the steepest part of the hill, my cousin, Brad Simmons, was in the lead and hit a rock in the middle of the road.  Not sure how he didn’t see it, but he hit it.  He went flying off the front of his bike and landed on his head.  It knocked him out cold and I thought he was dead.  An adult from one of the houses came out and brought him into her house and called my aunt.  He didn’t regain consciousness until later in the afternoon.  Did this stop us from seeing who was the fasted, not at all, the racing down the hill continued.  There were no helmets or any other gear when riding our bikes, just shoes, shorts, tee shirts and the wind in our hair.  But, I digress from the story at hand.

One of the families in our community lived up on a different hill and decided to build an indoor swimming pool at the top of that hill.  They named it Panorama Hill pool.  Our parents bought season passes for us all.  But, as I mentioned, we could only go swimming when they had time to take us.  So one day during the summer, we decided to ride our bikes up to the pool.

Let me preface what I am going to say next, with the following.  Doug and I had ten speeds and knew how to use our hand breads.  Debbie had a banana seat bike with the brakes on the pedals and was good at using that brake.  Ann had received a new three speed bike, with hand brakes and was not as accustomed to these brakes as Doug or myself were.  Just for curiosity, I found the following picture on the internet of what Ann’s bike looked like.  She was very proud of this bike.

The trip up the hill was slow and we ended up walking up the steepest part.  We spent a couple hours swimming and then bought some candy for the trip down.  Now, this is when the story gets interesting.  As I mentioned before, there were parts of the hill that were very steep.  As we headed down the hill, we were all using our brakes heavily and doing quite well.  Then all of a sudden, Ann was leaving the rode and going into the sagebrush.  Her bike started to go faster.  So, instead of hand braking and slowing her speed, she just jumped off the bike and it continued on through the sagebrush for another 30 or 40 yards, hitting rocks and brush and bouncing all over the place.  When it finally came to rest, we all rushed up to see if her new bike was okay and in working condition.  At that point we heard Ann exclaim, “All my candy is gone!”.   Doug and I were looking at the bike and Ann looking for her candy, which she had placed in the front basket and through the bouncing had been spread through the sagebrush.  I am not sure if she was able to retrieve all her candy, but the bike was fine and we were able to continue our trip home, with Doug and myself coaching Ann on how to use those hand brakes.