I have a lot of friends who name their bikes and I’ve always thought that was a fine idea, but I’m just not nearly as creative as I used to be, so I’ve been content with The Old Mamabike, The Mamabike, and The Tandem. However, I did name my most recent bike–Valentine, a single-speed cyclocross bike I got in February. I figured it was a fluke, but now…maybe there’s a chance I’ve still got it!

Oh, fun side story: my parents opted not to use our given names for my brother and me for the first two years of our lives. I can’t remember which culture if was from, but I remember it was borrowed from a culture not our own. I also remember my mom responding to my “BUT WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO US???!!!” with “Well, we heard about this tradition and I can’t remember the reasoning behind it, but it sounded neat!” Sheesh. (I’ll post an update if my dad emails me to clarify.) Anyhow, my brother was introduced to me as Little Brother, but I was a bit under two (ooh, and nameless also, I guess!) when he was born and the closest I could get was Yakoo Brooker. And so everyone called him Yakoo Brooker, Brooker for short. For a long, long time. Eventually–like last year…no, like when he was five, maybe?–he demanded we use his given name. Unfortunately for me, he wanted to use the whole damn thing so I stumbled over Alexander for a while. I imagine we either stopped talking to one another or he came to his senses and conceded to be called Alex. For decades we’d see people we hadn’t see since we were little who’d address him as Brooker and I’d giggle while he muttered “It’s Alex now.” Poor kid.

And so after nearly five years of not-so-intentionally not using my Big Dummy’s real name, she’s got a real name! But that also comes with a story…

After leading a Kidical Mass ride through a wind-and-rain storm to a nursery for pumpkins, hay maze, and mini baby goat petting, we returned home and I unloaded the bike formerly known as The Mamabike: I plucked the puking kid off the FlightDeck and carried him inside, removed the dog and all her stuff from the front basket, unhitched the puker’s bike from the back, lugged the eight pumpkins to the porch, and carried in the two bags of snacks and extra clothing…

As I returned to wheel my awesome bike deep into the carport to lock her up I took in her empty fork mounts and gaping FreeLoader bags–now containing only rain water and fallen leaves–ready for whatever we throw at her. And I impulsively said, “That’ll do pig, that’ll do.”

Meet Babe!

Yay Babe!

As always, stay tuned for the annual Big Dummy birthday post in early December in which I’ll recount the amazing things we’ve done over the past year so nothing of that nature right now.

But I do want to talk about another Big Dummy…one I love even more than my own (shh, don’t tell Babe!)

My celebration at the naming of my bike feels hollow knowing the life-saving Big Dummy of my friend Ginger was just stolen!

Here’s a clip from the local news. And @stolenbikespdx tweet:

The bike is registered with Bike Index and lots of eyes are looking for it, but add your eyes to the hunt and share the video, share the tweet, and register your own bike(s) on Bike Index RIGHT NOW if it’s not already in their database.