Ride On, Stella

Friendship Trail, Ontario, Canada

Jamie T.'s song, "Sheila," was a familiar tune played on repeat by two boisterous English college friends. The catchy opening, "Sheila goes out with her mate Stella, gets poured all over her fella," was a rhyme rolling like a looped track in my mind, making it's way to the edge of my tongue in frivolous moments.

In those days, it was just me and my bike. The only two wheels in my possession to travel from point A to point B. Every day, I'd wake early for the journey, three miles to school, three miles back, occasionally forgetting books at home, so an extra six mile round trip added to the daily commute. Living in Tennessee meant a rainy spring, a cold fall and a freezing winter. Sometimes the roads were covered in snow and sometimes they were glazed over with ice. No matter the weather, I dressed for the elements, the same trusty layers for the winter season, the beaten and battered rain jacket and backpack cover, and the bruised knees all too familiar with the hard, icy road. There were days when I spent hours wandering in the grocery store, as the toxic mix of rain and cold left me desperately waiting for one to stop.

My bike, was there through it all. The one sustainable source through the wonder years of college.

This object, became more than a tool to me, it formed a personality, took on a gender and later was given a name. She, was too much a part of my life to not be humanized. "Sheila goes out with her her mate Stella, gets poured all over her fella," ‘round and ‘round these words circled my mind, became like a chant with the circuitous beat of a grinding chain. And then one day, while singing this tune in a leisure cadence, I changed the words. "Katie goes out with her bike Stella, she goes in any weather..." and the new lyrics went on, but in a flippant moment, my bike was given a name.

"Stella." It made sense. In every way, she was "stellar," overcoming all adversities the weather, road or circumstances presented. And she was stellar in appearance, celeste was her color, a shade of turquoise unique to the Bianchi brand. All of her pieces, they were mighty beautiful, too. Derailers on the lower frame of the bicycle, a classic style. Medal toe clips with a celeste leather strap running through, black water bottle cages splashed in celeste spots in a seemingly sporadic, yet specific way.

She wasn’t perfect though, which is what I loved most about her. There was a particular combination of gear shifting necessary to kick the lowest and highest gear into action. Someone riding her without much experience would think that these two gears simply didn’t work. It took time to learn her unique quirks, a gift of familiar grooves shared only with one willing to go the miles with her.

Her year of birth, ‘87, was just a year before me. I always thought she was being primed for my arrival and carefully molded into a distinct style ‘til the fateful day she became mine.

I speak of Stella in the past tense because as of last week, she is no longer mine. I always knew there may come a day that I would graduate to a new bike, especially as my love for bike touring presented new technical needs. But in my version, I would have kept her around as my go-to commuter, and if I found the right person, that new adult in my shoes ten years ago, looking for a way to commute and a bike to be her companion through it, I would have placed it in the right hands.

But these hands, the ones that cut through our backyard fence early in the morning, who wheeled Stella quietly to the other side, who grabbed the handle bars and rode away, those hands were never trained to her delicacies and they will never have the appreciation my eager 20-year old hands felt the day they gripped those worn leather handle bars and felt the magic of pure steel propelling me forward into a newfound love of cycling.

One summer in college, I packed my bike and saddlebags and headed to Buffalo, New York to work as a bike tour leader. The open road and endless destinations on the other side of a trek was everything that made sense to me, I had found my niche in cycling as nature, humanity and adventure all married each other in this perfect activity.

Future bike touring plans, especially a specific bucket-list journey was on the horizon, so, I was in the process of buying a more suitable touring bike off of a good friend. My future touring bike, sat like a long-waited companion next to Stella, a different shade of turquoise left a tasteful complement for the pair of bikes I called my own.

My sturdy, soon to be loved Felt touring bike rolled away along with Stella that cold, ruthless morning. Just moments after they were taken, my husband and I ran outside, barefoot, chasing far off strangers in the foggy morning distance. It was too late.

Every day sense has been a process. First was shock, as a soul that always quite leaned toward naive felt the disappointment in victimization. Then, anger, knowing something belonged to you in the purest of sense, a belonging that attached a sentimental meaning beyond materialism. Then, there was fear, as the hole in the fence and the clearing of trees screamed violation, intrusion and uncertainty. For all I knew, anyone could have been the criminal, everyone started to look suspicious, and every passing bike could possibly be mine. Then, there was revenge. I scoped out nearby neighborhoods, investigated their entrance points, placed pieces together and imagined stealing my bike back, offering fake rewards, hunting down every market and imaginable outlet my bikes, and their parts could possibly be sold.

Exhausted, was the only place this frenzy left me. This wasn't my life, this wasn't me. I am not materialistic, I don't fear people, and I don’t want to live assuming the worst in people. Harboring entitlement of what was owed to me only perpetuated the ravenous steak. I have blind faith and too much trust, I've always been told. But for me, it's a conscience hope in people. I've built a life philosophy on the premise that if you seek the good in others, that is what you will find. And though I have seen some of the worst in humanity, and now, had my most cherished belonging taken by man, my views have not changed, instead they've made clear the complexities within the human struggle.

I've had friends who have stolen bikes, robbed grocery stores and seen the inside of a jail cell more times than the childish version of themselves would ever believe. I understand people like this, I have known of their pain, seen it build walls, create distance, and allow for an easy removal from the human behind the object of desire. Life is hard, and it takes everything we have to not let it rob the humanity within.

So, acceptance, is where I lie. A piece of my history, a pertinent object in a young adult’s development, it is gone. That season is gone. Stella's features will be with me like the friendship of a childhood dog, and nothing will replace the beauty, wanderer and adventurer she was. And as for the new bike, that one represented something else, something new, a foreshadow of what was to come.

New opportunities present themselves when the old ones step out of the way. No, that's not ideal and likely not what anyone would will upon themselves, but it's what happened. And what is left, is forward. Something new, something geared specifically for the bicycling needs Stella would have never known to be. She couldn't have known, she was too young, and her owner was still trying to figure herself out, what suited her the most.

Stella was made to be on the road, to go fast and withstand the worst, she did that, all the way until the end. She was not meant to take it slow, to take it all in, to go the miles a tour would request, those needs were meant to be fulfilled in a different saddle, a saddle meant for a different time.

Ride on, Stella, I will miss you so. Here's to the many miles we shared, to the love of cycling you sparked in me and for all the places we ventured that only you and I will know. I will ride on, but not without your smooth force of steel always with me.