Bike Swapper: I Can Fly!

By Dawn DeGroot

(Editor’s Note: This is the fourth installment of a year-long column by Seattle’s Dawn DeGroot who swapped her bike for a car last fall.)

I can fly! When I get on my bike and head down Seattle’s Woodland Park Avenue from 45th Street to 34th Street, it feels like I have wings and I can fly. It is the reason that I ride my bike. I take wings and at my age it is the only experience that makes me feel so light and quick.

With that said there is no better feeling on a cool sunny Sunday afternoon than my hands lightly perched on the handlebars and the spinning wheels balanced like wings under my body. It makes me so happy to feel weightless and free with speed. It is an illusion I have created for myself that brings me great joy.

Folks choose to ride for different reasons. My reason is a bit different. I didn’t set out to ride my bike so much. I swapped my car for my bike for a whole year through New Belgium Brewing’s Tour de Fat last fall. What was I thinking?

I didn’t expect to enjoy the process of riding to be so great. All the fun gear was a nice surprise: waterproof panniers, shirts with pockets in the back to hold water and a treat, brightly colored jackets and shoes you can only wear while riding. That is a girl’s dream – a pair of shoes with only one use.

It also feels like a bit of science is involved. What is the least I can eat with the most benefit to my body on a longer ride? I really don’t want a heavy meal when I get on my bike. I want to work toward being efficient in what I consume. My new favorite bike food is Spam musubi (sort of a sushi burrito). It seems to be just the right thing to get some nutrition (maybe not the Spam, try tofu instead) but it is salty to replace electrolytes and it travels really well.

Everyday this bike thing is a challenge with the weather, shopping, traveling alone, and meeting my friends somewhere because they are not able or willing to ride a bike. And then there is the upside: The ability to move your body like the wind and fly down the street like you are 10-years-old again on a summer day. There is also a joy knowing that every hill I climb there is one in the opposite direction where I can begin to fly again.

That feeling is worth all the challenges in this current bike world that I have chosen.

Spam Musubi Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 can Spam
• 3 cups uncooked sushi rice
• Nori sheets
• Furikake seasoning
• Musubi press

Cook the rice. At the same time the rice is cooking, fry the Spam cut into 6 – 8 pieces in a frying pan. Cut the nori to the width of the musubi press if needed. (Some presses are the width of the nori, some are half the width of a sheet of nori). When the rice is cooked, work quickly so the ingredients are warm.

Lay the musubi press on a sheet of nori. Place half inch of rice in the press and press it down. Sprinkle furikake flakes on the rice. Place a piece of spam on the rice. Add another half inch of rice and as you press it down pull the frame off the molded rice. Wrap the nori tightly around the other ingredients and place the seam down. The warm moisture of the rice will seal the nori closed.

Eat warm and delicious or seal it in plastic wrap to take along with you on your bike trip. – D.D.

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