The Bicycle --- The Way Us Kids got around back then

Taking the Short-cut on I-85

This was back in the days before "Soccer Moms." If a kid wanted to go somewhere you either rode your bicycle, hitched a ride, or walked. This was a bicycle adventure.

My best bud for a few years (ages 10-12) was Johnny Trull, whose Dad owned a barbershop on Statesville Rd. just south of where I-85 was being built at the time. Usually, every couple of weeks or so, I'd ride the school bus home with Johnny, get my hair cut, visit with all of Johnny's friends, stay for supper, and sometimes even spend the night. We were tight.

His school bus worked out well, because Trull's Barber Shop was quite a distance from my house and there was no better way for me to get there. --- After my bus dropped me off on Allen Rd. South, it crossed the railroad tracks on to Derita Rd. and headed towards Charlotte dropping other kids off along the way including two boys that lived way down Cowboy Rd. But Johnny's bus went down Statesville Rd.


Anyway, Johnny had just gotten this new train set for his birthday and was just dying to show it to me. He asked me that day at school if I could go home with him, but we hadn't made any pre-arrangements for me to swap school buses that afternoon. So, I told him that when I got home, I'd grab a snack and just ride my bicycle over. Usually that would mean back-tracking all of the way through Allen Hills to Nevin Rd., then riding Nevin all of the way to Statesville Rd., and then back towards Charlotte for another mile or so. Quite simply, there was no quick way to get there
. . . EXCEPT . . .
They had just finished pouring concrete part of the way for I-85 from Derita Rd. (now called North Graham St.) to Statesville Rd. and the highway was still not open to the public.

What hadn't been poured, was bound to be firm dirt or maybe even gravel packed and graded --- or at least so I thought. That would take miles off my journey and I could probably ride it in an hour or less.

Turns out there was still no interchange at Derita Rd. either so I kind of pushed and half-carried my Scwinn Roadmaster down the steep bank and across the broken ground to the concrete roadway. It really looked strange. Two ribbons of light gray concrete running parallel down this wide patch of dirt that stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see. Wasn't a blade of grass standing. Not in the median, Not on the shoulders of the road. Guess they wouldn't get around to planting grass any until the spring.

It had been raining a good bit that week, so after crossing onto the concrete my shoes were caked with inches of mud and so were the wheels on my bicycle. But after some hearty pedal pumping, I was on my way, slinging off the excess mud as I rode.

Felt like I was making up for lost time until I got to the bottom of the hill where old Cowboy Rd. used to cross. The pavement stopped there and I still had a good mile of landscaped, but unpaved road ahead of me. No gravel, just dirt --- no make that mud, I soon discovered. All of it uphill.

I buckled down and put the pedal to the metal. I came roaring off of the concrete, launching myself like Evil Kenevial flying off one of his ramps. I hit the ground into a sea of mud and probably rolled about 20-30 ft. through it until my momentum died and my heavy-duty bike came to a screeching halt. It was stuck in the mud just like glue. Guess that I was lucky that it didn't sling me over the handle bars. (I'll have tell you that story later).

Shifting from shoulder to shoulder and every angle imaginable, trying to get comfortable as I could with a huge bicycle wrapped around my neck. I carried my bike the rest of the way to Statesville Rd. Seemed like another mile at least and my bike must have weighed a ton. At first there was so much mud caked under the fenders that neither tire would even turn. I finally managed to shake and scrape enough mud off the frame with my hands that I got it going again. (My last wreck sent my bike to the shop and nearly sent me & Michael Smith to the hospital. He went over than handlebars and I bounced off a telephone pole, but at least the station wagon missed us. We were still talking about that ride when I saw him at the Oak Grove Hot Dog Lunch the other day.) Anyway, this time I got it going and then it was a short ride from there to Johnny's house.

I saw Johnny's train (really cool!!). Mine was a silver Lionel Passenger Train which lit up so that you could see the people inside, but Johnny's got a freight train that blew smoke and he had a bunch of buildings that actually did stuff like loading lumber and this guy operating a crossing grate. A little later we went overto Mr. Grant's house next door. He was a CB radio operator and he let us talk with people all over the world whenever we'd drop by.

We stayed a while, but I told Johnny we needed to work on my bike before Dad got there, or else I'd be in big trouble. We went outside and hosed down my bike. Cleaned it up pretty good. Dad picked me up in the pickup that night on the way home from work. I never said a word to him about my great adventure.

That was the first and only time I rode my bicycle on Interstate 85, ever.
--- Bernie Samonds
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