Big Wheel. Because it had a big wheel.

By Monte Wehrkamp

When I was a kid, there was one toy I wanted more than any other.

A Big Wheel.

You remember those, don’t you? Made almost entirely of plastic, the low-slung Big Wheel was (and still is, I’m told) a tricycle for older kids (up to around 8 years old). It looked fast, with chopper-style swept back handlebars, a huge front disc wheel, and a hand brake which locked up the right rear wheel so you could perform tail-out power slides.

No. You’ll kill yourself. 

But my Mom said no. I couldn’t have one. For surely, I’d roll down our steep driveway into the road where I’d be killed by the terrible traffic. We had, counting the mailman and the milkman, perhaps 11 vehicles pass our house daily. Twelve on garbage day. No matter. Were I to be given a Big Wheel, my imminent death was certain, so proclaimed my mother.

But mom, all my friends have one…

Of course, all my friends had Big Wheels. My best friend Todd had one. His house was on an even steeper hill than mine, and 38th Street actually had traffic. We’d post lookouts at the top and bottom of the hill, and when the coast was clear, fly past his house on his Big Wheel, coming to a spinning stop in the intersection below. We were never squashed by murderous Buicks or pickup trucks, though we did manage to crash into a mailbox or two.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjTAA_da97w

VIDEO CAPTION: As you can see, Marx didn’t do me any favors with this commercial. It only further served to convince my mother I would certainly be killed.

This was only the beginning of my mother’s irrational fear of cycling which she attempted to instill in me early. And often.

My mother’s fear that I’d be killed cycling moved up a notch when it came time for me to get my first bike-bike.

The Red Sting-Ray

It was a red Schwinn Stingray complete with banana seat, 5-speed shifter, drag slick rear tire, and ape hanger handlebars. And it looked, when I first saw it by the fireplace that Christmas morning in 1972, like this…

The ultimate child ride: A red Sting-Ray

The coolest bike in the world. Ever. But it didn’t look like that for very long.

“Oh George, it looks…dangerous!” Mom said to my dad.

Uh-oh, something bad is going to happen, I thought.

“Just look at those handlebars, sticking up like that!” she continued. “We can’t leave them like that. Those have to be fixed.”

Granny Handlebars

So my father drove to the hardware store where he purchased a granny handlebar — you know, the kind which usually has a wicker basket and a bell attached to it. Off came the ape hangers and on went the grannies. All in the name of safety, don’t you know. (Never mind sticking up from the the top tube was a stick shifter just a couple inches and one big crash away from, well, let’s just call them “Mom’s future grandchildren.”)

In the course of a few minutes, the coolest bike in the world became the lamest bike a young boy could possibly call his own. It was disfigured, maimed, set upon by an overprotective mother. It screamed, “I’m a dork and my mom still cuts my meat.”

But she wasn’t done yet. No, far from it.

The Yellow Columbia 10-Speed

After years of having to endure the embarrassment of my Mom-customized Schwinn, I graduated to my first road bike at the beginning of junior high (since I’d be riding it to school every day, unless there was a blizzard, and even then, only when the snow was deeper than six inches).

Understand that in western South Dakota in the middle 1970s, road bikes weren’t all that common. The most exotic bicycles in our town were 3-speed cruisers. But with 75 bucks burning a hole in my pocket, my father and I went downtown to Sears where I purchased

Classic Yellow Columbia 10-speed

a bike even cooler than my Stingray (brief pre-molestation period). A yellow Columbia 10-speed!

My bike was only a few seconds old, shining proudly in the driveway, when my mother pounced.

“What are those things?” she asked my dad.

Oh please God not again!

“What things?” he asked.

“Those curled-under things on top,” she said pointing at the drop bars.

Here we go again.

He’d be killed, George!

“You cannot possibly steer a bike with those…crazy things. He’ll be killed, George,” Mom continued. “Those have to be fixed before he goes anywhere on that bike!”

Off to the hardware store Dad went, with me protesting the entire way (in the passenger seat of his truck, sans seatbelt, of course, because it didn’t have one). But it was already settled. There was no changing Mom’s mind. If I wanted to ride my new Columbia 10-speed, it would have to be made safe with the dreaded granny bars. Complete with rubber grips with little grooves for your fingers.

After a few minutes of wrenching, my new bike was made just dorky as my old bike. Oh, how the neighbor boys all howled in glee. “Oh my God, she did it again! Haaaaaa ha hahha hahahhahha ha.” I tried to smile and go along with the teasing, like it was no big deal. But it was a big deal.  Even now, it’s a shattering memory. Really. I’m scarred. It pains me to type this.

In the end, the Columbia was stolen. Nothing left of it but a clipped bike lock hanging from the bicycle rack at school. A professional hit job. Truth be told, while it hurt for a long time, and I kept my eye out for my yellow 10-speed for months, there was a small sense of relief. At least I wasn’t riding around with granny bars.

The Beater. Beats nothing…

It wasn’t much later when we found a replacement bike — Dad and I went to an old guy’s garage, a kind of secret, underground bike shop. In it was a no-name, used 10-speed, complete with its original drop bars. It was scratched up, well used. This was a good thing, Dad reasoned. Less appealing to bike thieves.

And, as it turned out, able to fly under Mom’s radar as well. Finally, I got to ride a bike that hadn’t been safety spec’ed by my mother. I could pedal to school with my friends on a bike just like theirs. Riding dangerously!

No helmets. Yet we survived. 

Amazing when you think about it. We never wore helmets (not invented yet). Often times, we’d each have an armload of books (backpacks were unheard of back then). And for some of us in band or orchestra, an instrument case miraculously balanced across the brake hoods (in my case, a trombone).

——

Actually, Mom, looking back, it was a stroke of luck that we weren’t all killed. Your maternal instincts were spot-on, if only a little misdirected. Time certainly has a way of changing a child’s perspective, so that as an adult, one can appreciate their parent’s point of view.

But dang, did you really have to insist on granny bars?