By way of introducing the reader to my late friend Ian, and to the Friday morning bike ride that he and I shared for many years, let me reflect for a moment on the Creation Story – that is, the story about the creation of the world that appears in the Book of Genesis. The Creation Story is germane to my reminiscence about Ian, but I must amend that part of the story -- familiar to everyone  – which describes the Sixth Day of Creation, i.e., Friday.  Alas, Sunday Schools across America have never depicted the events of this day correctly.  So, here’s the true story: On Friday, the first thing that God created – early in the morning -- was the bicycle. Yes, the bicycle.  Later that morning, he created Adam and Eve. And so it was that Adam and Eve, with bicycles at their disposal, set out on a leisurely ride through the Garden of Eden. There they met up with a lot of animals that had just been created, and they invented names for each species. Afterwards, they had a chat with a friendly snake, shared an apple for lunch, and then returned home. 

Even after Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden, they continued to ride their bikes every Friday morning. During the generations after Adam and Eve, the custom of a Friday Morning Bike Ride was adopted by people in communities around the world.  For example, you will have noticed, whenever you’ve chanced to scroll through the Dead Sea Scrolls, a recurrent and rather mysterious abbreviation -- “FMBR” -- which, scholars have determined, stands for Friday Morning Bike Ride. And recent excavations in the region, near Qumran, have uncovered the prototype of a Schwinn three-speed bicycle bearing the inscription “FMBR.”  Small wonder, then, that the citizens of Qumran became widely known as People of the Bike. Similarly, In the even-more-ancient city of Ur, in southern Mesopotamia, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a primitive bicycle -- very primitive, just the frame of a bicycle, no wheels because the wheel had not yet been invented -- on which “FMBR” had been inscribed.

The Friday Morning Bike Ride became a kind of religious cult, not only in the world of antiquity but in America, too. You’ve heard of the Quakers?  And the Shakers? Well, there are also the Bikers. (Consider the case of the Wright Brothers, natives of Dayton, Ohio, who were raised as Shakers, later became Bikers but in the end were devout Flyers.)  When I semi-retired, many years ago, I joined a Friday Morning Bike Ride near my home in Montgomery County, MD.  At that time, there were eight or nine guys in the group, nearly all retired or semi-retired like me, and they all proved to be most agreeable biking companions. One of the guys was Ian, an affable and witty Scotsman, with whom I soon formed a close friendship. We would assemble every Friday morning on the Crescent Trail in Bethesda, and from there we crossed the Potomac River into Virginia and followed the Mt. Vernon trail to Old Town Alexandria. We always paused for an hour-long coffee break in Alexandria before turning about and biking back to Bethesda.  We were a somewhat heterogeneous group, united primarily by a common love of biking, but we soon learned that we also had intellectual interests in common – especially Ian and I -- and our coffee break in Alexandria never failed to generate a lively and enlightened discussion.  

The Friday Morning Bike Ride was, for many years, a dependable highlight of my week. Until it wasn’t. Until all of us aged – overnight, it seemed -- and sustained multiple hard falls and multiple  broken bones.  Finally, one after the other, in rapid succession, we reluctantly put our bikes into storage.  A few years later my friend Ian passed away. So, I have been moved to write a little elegy – for Ian and for the Friday Morning Bike Ride that Once Was:

    (With apologies to Robert Burns, Poet Laureate of Scotland, and to Gene Raskin, an American songwriter.)

    Should an old acquaintance be forgot 

    And never brought to mind?

    Should an old acquaintance be forgot 

   And joyous days of auld lang syne?

   For auld lang syne, my dear Ian, for auld lang syne,

   We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

   Those were the days, Ian my friend, 

   That we thought would never end

   And we’d ride our bikes forever and a day.

   Our bikes rolled on and time stood still

   Each and every Friday, as we pedaled our way,

   Come what may, to Old Town Alexandria.

   Yes, those were the days, my friend, 

   That we blithely thought would never end, 

   But time will always have the final say

   And we could not keep the years at bay.

   All too soon, ’twas our bikes that stood still

   And  ‘twas the years that rolled on.

   So, fare thee well, my dear Ian,

   Until we shall meet again, in a timeless place,

   Riding our bikes through forever green fields,

   Over endless, gently rolling hills.

   Yes, we will do it, old friend, 

   We will take a cup of kindness yet,

   For auld lang syne.