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I am very fond of the USA, it is a great place to visit and if you happen to live and work there for a period of time with a reasonable job, as I did in 2000/2001, it is a very enjoyable and pleasant place to be. I was reminded of this today as I went for my morning bike ride. I have three mountain bikes, two full suspension and one I bought last year as my “shopping bike”.

As a former London Boy and commuter cyclist, you always need a “shopping bike”, it is the one you U-Lock to lamp posts, have no emotional attachment to and won’t be broken hearted, merely inconvenienced if on your return you find it damaged or stolen. My other two never get left unattended because not only are they irreplaceable as bikes, not being manufactured any more but they are not just “bikes”, they are part of my personal story.

What triggered this was that this morning I was riding my Klein Mantra a radical bike design that I had fallen in love with the first time I saw one being ridden in the West End of London many years ago. When I arrived in the States, it was uncertain just how long I would be there and I was living and working in the City of Rockford which is about 95 miles west of Chicago which is a real city that I was to ‘discover’ later and claim for myself and on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II, in case she wanted it.

American Cities

Of course anywhere that consists of something more than just a gas station and a couple of shacks, is termed a ‘city’ in the US. Now Illinois is a very large State that stretches from the Great Lakes in the north, right down to the start of the “South” in fact, one of my fabulous co-workers Glenn came from the southern part of Illinois and definitely had a bit of a “good old boy” twang. I did once make the mistake of using ‘irony’ when told by a local, quite proudly, that Rockford was the second largest city in Illinois, Chicago obviously being the biggest by far.

“You mean that you have a cathedral and a Royal Charter from the Queen ?” Of course I then had to explain what a city was in the UK and so on… a silly mistake I never repeated as it wasn’t terribly amusing in the end. I did however on a number of occasions have fun with my accent which was much admired by local black young men on the grounds that it must be a “girl puller” but I suspect, that would only have been the case if they had my accent rather than me.

Some Fun

There were the usual ‘accusations’ that I must be Australian – Crocodile Dundee has much to answer for in my view but the most amusing one I can recall was when sitting in the local ‘Sports Bar’ having just returned from a working trip to Kentucky (what a fabulous name..). It was called a ‘Sports Bar’ because it had lots of TV screens that monitored all the current NFL matches live. I used it a lot because when I had my young techie ‘Brits’ over to help me out, they loved it – “so American” but also, the staff were great and always looked after you both properly and gracefully.

The average American, even when a bit drunk, is still a pretty well behaved person and I was accosted by one such chap who came out with one of those great lines you never hear but expect to like, “Follow that Cab !”

“From your accent, you’re not from round these parts ?”

A slight pause:

“Nope, I’m from Kentucky.”

He turned this over in his mind for a moment and said:

“Don’t sound like a Kentucky accent to me.”

Likewise, I momentarily savoured his response before replying:

“No, I lied, I come from Idaho.”

He pondered my reply but briefly before answering:

“Yep, if I came from Idaho, I would lie too.”

I bumped into him and had a beer with him on a number of occasions after that, he was a really good chap who despite only ever having left the US during his military service in Vietnam, had a natural understanding that someone not from the US, might see things differently. We would chat, I would ‘explain’ a question and most often he would see a way of explaining the little things, often the crucial ‘different things’ to an outsider so that I could avoid bad cultural mistakes.

Back to the Klein Mantra

When I arrived in the States, The Mantra was finally going out of production and they were being sold off at really good discounts because unlike the UK, in the US when they want to shift stock, they are aggressive about it, no piddling 10% here, think a genuine 50%. I was used to riding a bike everyday so I thought, heck I’ll buy a cheap bike and one of my co-workers Marty, was a keen bike rider so in our lunch breaks, he took me around the best local bike shops so that I could see what was available and at what price.

Eventually we ended up at Rockford Cycles a shop owned by an ex-Trek (big bike brand) salesman and he had a Mantra in stock. In the UK, this machine I had always loved the look of, would have cost around £1,350, I bought it for under £700. It was to become an essential tool that took me to and from Rock Cut Park every weekend, keeping alive that part of me who even at the age of 54, was a cyclist and physically capable plus, because Rock Cut is beautiful, lots of “Soul Riding”. When I finally returned to the UK, I bought it back with me and because I had lived and worked abroad for more than 6 months (I think it was), it was treated as an exempt something or other for tax purposes.

Why Remember Today ?

I have no idea, the bike yes, perhaps the light or perhaps because it is an American Election year. I happened to be there in the 2000 election and the “Hanging Chards of Florida” and the current Presidential Race is interesting, whether or not you were a “West Wing” fan. Perhaps this is a silly story but then again, should anybody from the other side of the “Pond” read this, be assured that this person is thinking good thoughts for you all because I remember mainly, very good times.

But perhaps ultimately, these days I do just “Soul Riding” me, my bike, my cameras and ultimately because it was when I was in the States that I started taking photographs again so, that is where my “today” first started. And if that is the case, everyday is a good day to remember that, isn’t it ?