This past Sunday, right around two o’clock, I found myself wanting a nap again. I’m really hating this whole “need to nap” thing, so I suggested we take a bike ride instead – to Baldwin Park, a neighborhood about fourteen miles away.

“Okay,” my wife said. “But I need a nap first.”

So much for that plan.

We did end up going, just about an hour and a half later. We grabbed a slice of pizza when we got there, then turned around and came back. Because of the distance (about 29 miles) and the timing, we ended up pushing pretty hard on the ride back, trying to reach home before the sun set.

Toward the end of that ride, though, we were just concentrating on moving forward. My youngest son was looking pretty beat, and my oldest wasn’t doing much better. Riding an unfamiliar bike, he had wiped out a couple times.

On the long stretch beside route 434, a woman and a man zoomed by us like we weren’t even moving. My oldest son was at the front of our line, with me in second.

“Oh man,” I said, pulling up beside him. “That girl just totally crushed you.”

“What?”

I gave a chin nod toward the couple who were disappearing into the twilight.

“Oh man,” he said, shaking his head.

Five minutes later, we found the couple taking a breather on the side of the path. As we rode by, the big guy raised his eyebrows at me. I laughed.

It wasn’t too long, though, before I glanced back and saw them catching up to us again. “Here they come,” I said.

“Oh no!” My oldest pointed them out to his younger brother. “They’re catching up!”

I was at the front of our line at that point, but I could hear both boys talking excitedly about how we had to go faster, that they were catching us.

“Go ahead,” I said.

My oldest pedalled past me.

“Everything’s a race,” I heard my wife say with a laugh. “You know how it is.”

Neither of the couple answered her, but as they pulled up next to us, the man stood up in his pedals, leaned forward, and exploded by us, grinning from ear to ear.

“Oh no!” My oldest stood up on his own pedals, his legs working furiously.

The woman maintained her pace, much faster than we had been going, but not as fast as her partner.

My son pedaled as hard as he could, but there was no catching the man. Heck, we could barely even see him at this point. My son did, however, manage to stay in front of the woman, at least until they reached a stop sign, where he stopped to wait for us and she didn’t.

“I beat her!” he said as I pulled up. “I beat her!”

“But not the man,” his little brother answered from behind me.

“Yeah, but at least I wasn’t beaten by a girl!”

“Good job,” I said. “You were really moving.”

“She beat you too,” he said. “You were beaten by a girl.”

“Here comes your mother,” I said.

“Oh,” he said with a grin. “Right.”