Bicycle Music

By Stan Purdum

For more than 10 successive years, I attended the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure (GOBA), held in June as a tour of a few Ohio counties each time, with overnights in campgrounds, city parks, college campuses or other public venues. Usually, on the last evening of the event, there was a “talent night” where participants took popular songs and substituted words of their own related to cycling in general or cycling with GOBA in particular.

For example, the winner one year was  a guy who got on stage with prominent bandages on several parts of his body covering pretend injuries, and with the front wheel of his bike in his hand, and sang “You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Loose Wheel,” to the tune of the Kenny Rogers’ hit, “You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille.”

That same year, I won third place for my rendition of, “On Your Left,” to the tune of “Shall We Dance?” from The King and I musical. Here are my original lyrics: (the town names were places the week-long route went through that year):

We’ve just been introduced
I do not know you well
But now that GOBA’s started
We are riding side by side

We’re leaving Coshocton
En route to Mt. Vernon
We’ve been to Mansfield and to Orville
We are Bucyrus bound.

On your left!
It’s the cry of passing cyclists — on your left!
On your left!
When they then say hello they mean goodbye.

On our left
When the last charging bike has gone on by
We will keep on pedaling forward
Without feeling one bit awkward
As the passers pull away ahead

But if they don’t call out loudly 
Then they cannot pass us proudly
On our left
On our left
On our left

(instrumental interlude using a kazoo, then repeated last two stanzas)

That was the only year I won anything for my contributions, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Another year, I titled my entry “In Spandex We Can Fly,” and sang it to the tune of Lacy J. Dalton’s hit “16^th Avenue”:

When June comes to Ohio, I join the GOBA ride
We pedal through the streets and towns and in the countryside
I ride away from my routine, tell noncycling friends goodbye
I ain’t no superhero, but in spandex I can fly.

I don’t hit golf or tennis balls, no baseball do I play
I pedal my bicycle and get around that way
I love to see Ohio, its hills and fields and farms
At the end of the day I’m glad to say I’m enjoying GOBA’s charms.

There’s people from these United States and some from overseas
We tent together in GOBAville as friendly as you please
GOBA’s a great adventure, a spirit and a high
We are not superheroes but in spandex we can fly.

Some of us are just beginners who’ve barely turned a crank
Others are long-time riders with miles and miles to thank
We become one stretched out peloton under the GOBA name
At the end of the day we’re glad to say we’re enjoying GOBA fame. 

And then one night in some fairground, with friends old and newly made
We celebrate what we have done, and how the route has laid
We’ll arrange to come again next year, but we want to know why
We can’t come as superheroes ‘cause in spandex we can fly.

There’s people from these United States and some from overseas
We tent together in GOBAville as friendly as you please
GOBA’s a great adventure, a spirit and a high
We are not superheroes but in spandex we can fly.

It was all corny, but it was fun.

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Stan Purdum has ridden several long-distance bike trips, including an across-America ride recounted in his book Roll Around Heaven All Day, and a trek on U.S. 62, from Niagara Falls, New York, to El Paso, Texas, the subject of his book Playing in Traffic. Stan, a freelance writer and editor, lives in Ohio. See more at www.StanPurdum.com.