Don't get me wrong, I think bikes are terrific. I own several of my own, including a trendy mountain style, and ride them for pleasure and light exercise.

They still talk about the night that Augie Pabst, a fresh-faced heir to the brewing fortune, drove a rented Falcon into the swimming pool of the Mark Thomas Inn in Monterey, California. His reviews were so good that he repeated the act at a Howard Johnson's outside Denver.

I have four grown children and two tiny grandchildren.

There was a day when you could identify a NASCAR Ford, Chevrolet, or Dodge and they actually looked like "stock cars." Now they are pod machines, slick on the outside but still powered by the same Neanderthal carbureted pushrod V-8s that have been under their hoods for half a century. If this is real auto racing, then the WWF ought to be part of the Olympics.

Regardless, I did rise to the editorship before embarking on a freelance career in the late '60's.

The bicycle is a former child's toy that has now been elevated to icon status because, presumably, it can move the human form from pillar to post without damage to the environment.

Had I been more responsible I might have made something of myself as a junk bond trader, long-haul trucker or perhaps a plumbing contractor.