12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, March 22, 2007

Spring is here and, for me, 'tis the season of the bike. Some men are obsessed with motorcycles; I am obsessed with bicycles. I always want a new one, and I want it to be my primary mode of transportation. The bad thing is, I don't do anything about my wants.

My obsession started in childhood. I was the heir of every bicycle my older brother outgrew or damaged beyond recognition, which meant I never sat on a seat that hadn't been ridden hard and put away bent.

How I longed for a fresh bike of my own, but I rode the same matte black, single-speed, pedal-braked Huffy from first through fifth grade. It was a great bike. I ramped fences, plowed through wood piles and sped away from cursing shop-owners on that spray-painted jalopy.

But around fourth grade, I began to feel those growing seeds of discontent that blossom into full-blown betrayal. I wanted speed.

So in fifth grade, I took some scissors and cut a pretty square out of the Sears catalog. I kept it in my pocket, folded neatly, and removed it often. It was a picture of a champagne-colored 12-speed Huffy with Shimano components and a chamois seat.

This was the stuff Santa was made of – pure magic. I dreamed of riding that bike up to the group of ringlet-haired girls who lived a few blocks over and making their eyelashes bat at the sheer classiness of anything champagne-colored.

I prayed to Santa every night, "Please, just give me this one thing and I will never ask you for anything ever again."

Well, December 25 came and I found myself so incredibly glad that I was born into a Christian family. There was my champagne-colored, 12-speed Huffy with Shimano components and a chamois seat. The girls!

I am riding into gray clouds of my own breath, pumping the pedals in a fury. Luck! The gaggle of ringlet-haired beauties is outside, too. One of them has a new bike. I come up, 30 miles an hour, pedal backward, no brakes, grab one of the handbrakes, knuckles whiten, then ... I go sailing over the handlebars like I am launched out of a canon. Laughter, groans, crumpled bike, femur.

There are still some things that will always be magical to me no matter how old I get. The freedom of a bike moving through spring breeze is one of them. Riding in the cold isn't.

Gordon still prays to Santa on "The Ticket" KTCK-AM (1310) weekdays from 5:30 to 10 a.m. Catch him on TV on The Gordon Keith Show, Thursdays at 10 p.m. on KFWD (Channel 52). E-mail him at gordon@gordonkeith.com.