I had pushed my luck too far this time.
Standing on the wrong side of a train station, in a town I’d never seen before, holding a bike with a handlebar facing 30 degrees west of straight, I wondered, “Is this the end of Opa Fiets?”
It was a new beginning. Almost on a whim, I’d taken the train to Steenwijk, and hung out at the tourist trap known as Gietthorn, where folks spend big money to putter around on canals past a few old houses and buy trinkets like cloth baby shoes shaped like wooden clogs.
With the family, a fine day. Alone, sad and boring. There was an organic farm 30 minutes away, but when I rode there no one was working it. Then another 30 minutes back to Steenwijk, from which Ruby Stevens took the stage name Barbara Stanwyck. A desolate downtown, and soon the bike would be forbidden from the train for rush hour.
But there was a city called Zwolle, and a train that would get there by 4:03, if I could only find the train station. Went the wrong way twice, had to consult the map on my phone. Barely got there, then sat opposite a lovely woman who was coming back home from her mother’s 102nd birthday party. I forgot about the bike until I heard it crash to the floor.
So here I am with a broken bike. The store I rented it from is closed. My phone says there’s a store open nearby, but in real life there’s just a parking garage on a university campus.
Wait a moment. A parking garage?
Happy Ending
In the Netherlands a parking garage means bikes. Pushing open a door I am in a room just 3 meters square, before a man who maintains the students’ wheels. After a quick flick of an Allen wrench, he suggests a French restaurant just 5 minutes away, a block from the train station.
Would such a happy ending be possible in, say, Atlanta? No. In Atlanta, where the car is king, bike shops do exist, just not a lot of them. You only talk to salesmen there anyway, not mechanics.
Bicycles are simple machines, but they break a lot. There are bike shops everywhere in the Netherlands. My adventure may have been scary, but it wasn’t at all dangerous.
The next morning Opa Fiets goes out with confidence. The weather remains warm, but clouds are coming in later. I need to get out early to take the pictures my family has asked for.
But something is different. I am no longer the nervous wreck I was a month ago. There’s also something to be said about aging. At 70, my maximum heart rate is just 150 beats per minute, something that only drew a light sweat in my 20s. My smartwatch says 100 bpm is now exercising, which I can draw from a slow walk. Or nervous energy.
There are no nerves today. I know where I am, and I know where I’m going. The Utrecht map snaps into place in my head. The long straight to the train station. A teardrop-shaped old town, with its cobbles and crowds, easy to avoid if you know what you’re doing. At times I ride one-handed, like a Dutchman, and by the end of 27 miles the watch says I’ve hardly exercised at all.
At last, Opa Fiets feels at home.
