rechelle's lifelyrics

We were just young adults having a good time when Ray, Karl, and I used to go out late at night and ride around playing “cops and robbers” on our bicycles. In those days, I had no idea that I would become Ray’s wife a few years later, or the role that bicycles would play in our family life. Ray grew up racing on the BMX circuit, and actually was wearing his gear ready for a race the very first time I met him. It was pretty obvious that he was an avid cyclist. On the other hand, I always had a bicycle that I used for recreation, but it was never something I identified as part of who I was while growing up.

After we got married, we purchased our first tandem bicycle that we used for recreation for a bit, but as I started having more babies, it went by the wayside for lack of practicality. Ray always made sure the kids had bicycles from a young age, and as the kids got older, we went on family rides from time to time.

It wasn’t until we were living at the foothills in Corona, California that cycling became a “thing” again for us. Ray started mountain biking from Corona over the pass on fire roads out to Irvine and back again, but he would be gone for several hours several times a week while I was home – busy with homeschooling, making meals, and managing our household. Ray was getting in great shape, and I was getting a little frustrated at the amount of time it was taking away from our family for his mountain biking adventures. He finally convinced me to get a mountain bike and start sharing some of the adventures with him as I got more conditioned. To my surprise, it ended up being a great outlet for us as a couple, and we created our weekly date night around a mountain bike ride at Pete’s Canyon followed by “Taco Tuesday” at this great fisherman’s market/fish house close by the trail.

Eventually, all of the kids had their own mountain bikes, and we enjoyed many family rides on trails we wanted to experience from Laguna Beach, California up to Central Oregon when we would make our annual trips to spend time with our Church friends in the Eugene area. One of my favorite trails was China Beach just outside San Francisco with single track trails and switchbacks through lush green forest bordered by the beautiful blue water of the bay.

After we moved to Oregon in 2011, there was a season when Ray was doing a lot of solo cycling – both on his road bike and with a mountain biking group in Corvallis. When I would talk to him about the amount of cycling he was doing, he would say, “We should get a tandem, so we can enjoy it together and not worry about the difference of our fitness levels…” (The back story on this statement is that there were many times we would go on a ride together, and then he would want to go on a second ride to “get some exercise.”) I wasn’t riding enough on a regular basis to go at a pace that was remotely challenging for him, so that was his way of coming up with a solution.

We were warned that tandem riding isn’t for everyone by the man who was selling the  DaVinci Grand Junction tandem we went to test ride. He explained that he and his first wife rode tandem for over 20 years and enjoyed it immensely. When she passed away from cancer, he got rid of the tandem. After some time, he met a lady who was also an avid cyclist, and got really excited about the prospect of sharing tandem adventures with her. He purchased the DaVinci from the shop in Colorado, brought it back to Oregon, and they went on their first ride together. It didn’t go so well, and she only joined him on the tandem one more time before declaring that she needed to be in control of her own wheels. They still enjoyed cycling together, just on singles instead of sharing a bicycle.

I always felt like the cycling history we had, combined with the trust that I automatically had from all of those mountain biking date nights, made it easy for us to transition to tandem riding. The man who sold us the tandem gave me some great coaching before we set out, so I just focused on being a good support to the strong leadership Ray was able to provide from all of his experience. Another big plus was the unique feature of the DaVinci brand I didn’t even know existed: Independent Pedaling. Actually, I’m not sure I would have been excited to ride tandem without that singular feature. It’s truly a game changer, especially when I need to stand up after several miles in the saddle, and Ray wants to keep powering forward.

We have been able to experience some amazing adventures on our tandem bicycle, and I’m really grateful that it has become part of who we are as a couple. We were able to ride around Crater Lake, Oregon in 2022, and last year we rode 6 epic rides throughout the State of Washington and British Columbia, Canada during a 10 night road trip celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary. You can check out the 7-video series I created to highlight the rides & adventures on Ray’s YouTube channel here: EPIC ADVENTURE – 35 YEARS