"Look Ma, no hands!"

[michelem]

My DH is the king of riding no hands. Last week on our tour was his first time ever riding a road bike (Bianchi Via Nirone 7)m he's always ridden a mountain bike or a bmx (as a kid). He took video from the bike, picked flowers from the side of the road while riding, etc. Scared me to death, but barely a wobble came from his bike. Me, I've never been able to ride no-handed. Not on my clunky wide-tired mountain bike, not on the many test-ride road bikes I've tried out, and certainly not on the Bianchi Dama She I rode on our tour last week. Toward the end of the week I got so I could ride one-handed though (using one hand to flip the map or wipe my nose). I still haven't mastered getting to my water bottle while on the bike though and also have trouble making turn signals. DH says he gained a lot of skills as a child when he had a paper route. He says, "Try cycling with 50 pounds of newspapers and having to throw them from the moving bike." I guess that would do it! I spied him doing that "smugness" move a few times as well, but I don't think he was being smug at all. He says it was because he was getting pain/soreness from the bent over position and this was his way of stretching out without having to get off the bike.