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Three years ago my neighbors across the street asked their bike racing neighbor if I wanted to join them for the Acura Los Angeles Bike Tour X. My response was “isn’t that one of those fun rides where like 20,000 people who haven’t ridden in like a year gets their dusty bike out of storage and shows up on a Sunday?” Why would I want to do that? When I go to a ride it is with 50 to 100 like minded riders who are out to CRUSH the competition. No fun ride for me. I am a RACER!

Well somehow I gave in and decided to go. That was three years ago.

It is now 4:00am on March 4, 2007 and I am walking quietly (for no real reason) to try to wake up 2 of my 3 children to bring them on our 3rd annual Acura Los Angeles Bike Tour. Both of them were so excited the night before, that even though I get them in bed by 7:00pm, the 4 year old did not fall asleep until 10:30pm, and the 5 1/2 year old did not fall asleep until 12:00am. On top of that my 5 1/2 year old was fighting a fever that had gotten as high 104.7 the day before. With much pleading I convinced my wife to let her go if she was feeling better. Which she was! As we get ourselves dressed in our warm clothes we pile into the 4 cars it will take to transport the 12 of us, with our 7 bikes, 1 tandem, 2 trail-a-bikes, and one trailer to the campus of University of Southern California. And at 5:50am we are at the start of the ride to GO SLOW.

What makes this group even more interesting is that my neighbors bike riding clan is lead by their cycling enthusiast Grandfather, Stuart. He lives in Missouri and teaches at the University there. He flies into Los Angeles just to take part in this ride with his daughter, son-in-law, and 4 grandkids. And this year his wife Nina joined him.

What makes this ride so much fun for us now is the whole build-up. My kids spend the whole year planning the whole thing out. Who, what, and where. What they will wear. What they will eat. How much PowerAid they will drink. They make sure that they cover everything a little kid can.

So my team has a race the same day. And I am preparing to GO SLOW. You know what, I never realized what I was missing before. My usual rides have me focusing on the rear wheel — 4 inches in front me — at 26+ miles per hour. I am looking for the hand signals for the road hazards, the breaks off the front, the rider not holding their line. I am always checking my power meter, and heart rate, my speed and cadence. But not today. Today I left the computer at home. I actually plan on braking on the downhills so not to freak out the kids. I hop on my full suspension mountain bike (all 40 pounds of it) and attach the trail-a-bike, and then attach the trailer to the trail-a-bike (I am pulling like 250 pounds). Who says going slow can’t be a workout? We head on out when it is still dark out, right after some pretty cool fire works. Riding at no more then 10 mph.

What I noticed the most is that when you go slow you can see the buildings, the cool designs, the people cheering. The smiles. My bike semi trailer truck was something of a odd machine judging by the reactions of the spectators which just added to the fun.

So until next year when I get to take one day in the year 2008 to GO SLOW. I will be playing this March 4, 2007 over in mind as the day that I slowed down to really enjoy the bike.

Thanks for the fun Talya, Hannah, Danny, Miriam, Stuart, Nina, Leah, Joey, Benjamin, Jonathan, Kalman, and myself (Jonathan).

Find your local fun ride and set the goal “TO GO SLOW”.