In my salad days (Thanks Dylan Thomas.), while commuting and cavorting aboard my ten-speed, as it was known back in the days of old, I was nothing more than an oddity.

There were times when I was even less than an oddity, morphing into invisibility and frequently viewed with suspicion. During those early days in my bicycling career the great bikes were Masi, Gitane, Raleigh, Merckx, Pinarello, Bianchi and a few more, but only a few. Today I look around while driving and riding and no longer recognize the landscape.

It's hard to drive a block in a large city without sighting a bicyclist. Many of these bicyclists are aboard bikes that professional bike racers back when I started riding in a serious way could have only dreamt of. Materials not even thought of at that time are now common in bike manufacturing: aluminum, titanium and carbon fiber come to mind. Believe it or not, there are even some bike frames made of bamboo today. I guess you could use it as firewood if the need arose. One of my bicycles was born in that era. It's a classic Bianchi complete with a Campagnolo Record gruppo and painted celeste or lime green that is unique to Bianchi. It's equipped with down tube friction shifters that make shifting a conscious effort done only when absolutely necessary. In this era I find myself shifting if only to test the wisdom of shifting under different pedaling conditions. That's a luxury that was not available to the biker of an earlier age. One of these days I plan to organize a ride for those who have a similar bike. We'll cruise along mostly flat terrain in our wool jerseys while dreaming of the old days when we were members of a club made up of only a few dedicated souls.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm more than pleased with the development of bicycling in all its permutations, but I still find myself looking back to the "good old days." Those days were, for me, filled with adventures aboard my bike that remain vivid to this day. Most of the pain of riding up a mountain on a loaded bicycle with two chain rings and five rear gears is now forgotten. Sleeping alongside a mountain or wooded road where the sunset found me is still there filed under "beds I've known and found wanting." Memories of being pursued by various breeds of dogs, thus improving my sprinting skills, are not dimmed with time. (I was on a recent ride in Lewis County when I was again pursued by an athletic dog with my right calf as his target. My sprinting skills came in handy and the disappointed dog went home to wait for the next unsuspecting calf.) Fellow bikers I met along the way as well as non-bikers who found me interesting and I them will always be there to mine for good memories.

With improvements in any technology, there follows the certainty of higher expectations and less patience with failures. I'm seated in front of one of these technology improvements to write this. A manual typewriter got me through an undergraduate degree, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I married into an electric typewriter during graduate school. What a miracle is the computer. The same is true of the improvements I've experienced in bicycling. I'm more forgiving of the classic Bianchi than I am of my technologically advanced Trek. While the Trek may attempt excuses for not doing what's expected of it, the Bianchi just doesn't care what I think. It's earned its snootiness, and I accept that. It must also accept that it hangs upside down in the garage a lot while the Trek is on the road.

As you may have noticed, the weather of late hasn't been bicycle friendly or car friendly for that matter. No amount of technology will make it safe or even sane to be on a bicycle when the streets are snow-covered. (You might be interested in exploring the 1988 Giro d'Italia when Andy Hampsten of the U.S. won a stage in a blizzard in the Dolomite Mountains. The photographs of that heroic ride are humbling to those of us who think we've done great things on our bikes.)

Whether you ride a $25 cast off you picked up at a Salvation Army store or a $3,000 ready for racing bike, you are aboard a machine that has advanced to a degree that the early professional riders could only dream of. Ride it proudly and safely.