Children on Bicycles Have Radicalized Me

An alarming preponderance of feral Schwinns - and the Croc-wearing kids who fear no sedan

For almost three weeks, my injured knee has kept me from my usual dog-walking routine: my own dogs every day, plus a shift walking shelter dogs every Monday. This has been unfortunate for the dogs.

It may be worse for my neighborhood.

I used to think dog walking was mostly about exercise, fresh air, and giving an animal the opportunity to inspect the same mailbox post for four consecutive minutes. Three weeks without it has revealed the truth: the walks were actually a neighborhood public-safety program designed to suppress my get-off-my-lawn-ness.

Without the walks, I’ve been sitting more, driving more, and monitoring neighborhood activity with the vigilance of Adam, our resident HOA-Stasi officer. If his champagne-colored Buick makes a second pass by your house, he has opened a file.

Expect a sternly worded email by close of business.

At dog-walking speed, my neighborhood is full of families enjoying summer. From behind a windshield, those same families appear to have released dozens of small, erratically moving insurance claims into traffic.

Suburban Wisconsin summer is mostly brat smoke, lawn stripes, and the quiet knowledge that somewhere behind a parked Tahoe, a wannabe Lance Armstrong is gathering speed.

The first sign is usually a wheel.

You don’t see a child. You don’t see handlebars. You see three inches of front tire and immediately understand that someone with no income, no driver’s license, and only a developing awareness of mortality is about to make a major transportation decision.

One of the great pastimes of summer is driving slowly through your own neighborhood, knowing that at any moment a child on a bicycle may rocket out of a driveway with the serene confidence of someone who has never heard the phrase “claims adjuster.”

They never ease into the road, either. There’s no cautious roll to the end of the driveway. No pause. No left-right-left.

They launch.

Everything else in my Midwestern neighborhood is carefully controlled - the lawn height, the mailbox color, the approved shades of beige. The children, meanwhile, enter traffic like they’ve been fired from a T-shirt cannon.

And the driveway launch is only the opening maneuver.

Next comes the diagonal intersection crossing, in which a fourth grader enters from one side of the road, looks backward over his shoulder, and somehow continues traveling forward toward a location no civil engineer could have predicted.

Adults tend to view an intersection as a place where two roads meet. Children view it as an episode of Fixer Upper on HGTV - more open concept than a ranch house after Chip Gaines finds a sledgehammer.

Then there is the one-handed cruise: one hand on the handlebars, one hand holding an iPhone, both feet wearing Crocs, and the helmet either missing entirely or resting as far back on the head as possible, so as not to distract from his beautifully coiffed Lamma helmet.

The child cyclist’s understanding of traffic law begins and ends with one fact: you have brakes.

Meanwhile, every adult driver in the neighborhood has adopted the posture of a bomb technician. Every trip to Kwik Trip becomes a suburban Hurt Locker: 17 in a 25, right foot poised over the brake, eyes scanning the gaps between parked cars, radio turned down as though silence improves peripheral vision.

Somewhere nearby, Brayden is preparing to enter traffic like Kramer entering Jerry’s apartment.

After a few weeks on alert, ordinary neighborhood objects begin to look like intelligence:

An unattended bicycle lying in a yard becomes a warning.

A basketball rolling toward the street becomes the opening scene of a driver’s-ed film.

A recycling bin is no longer a recycling bin. It’s a cloaking device.

Suburban Wisconsin drivers don’t need self-driving cars. We need cars that can detect when a parked car is being used as tactical cover by a junior member of SEAL Team Schwinn.

Eventually, despite the reduced speeds, lowered radios, and constant surveillance, one of the neighborhood’s uninsured operators breaches the perimeter. The most emotionally complicated moment comes after you slam on the brakes and make prolonged eye contact with the child who just crossed in front of you.

You’re attempting to communicate several things through the windshield:

I am glad you are alive.

I am furious with you.

Where are your parents?

The child’s expression communicates only one thing in return:

Why is that creepy bald guy staring at me?

To be clear, I’m thrilled these kids are outside. I simply believe that any child wishing to enjoy a spontaneous summer afternoon should file a route plan with the village by 4:00pm on the previous business day, and remain at least one Subaru-length from all public roadways.

My sudden interest in neighborhood traffic safety may also contain a small conflict of interest: professional jealousy. For almost three weeks, my knee has adopted the Mitch McConnell doctrine: block all forward movement and wait for everyone else to give up.

Getting off the couch requires planning. Stepping off a curb feels like something that should be discussed with my medical team. Putting on a sock occasionally involves audible negotiation.

Meanwhile, a nine-year-old is launching off a curb like Johnny Knoxville if the stunt coordinator were also nine and the entire production budget had been spent on Gatorade. These children treat their knees as unlimited natural resources. I currently regard mine as a third-string wide receiver: they’re technically part of the team.

But also, they kind of suck.

That may explain the jealousy. They trust their knees, their balance, and the braking systems of complete strangers.

I have therefore begun construction on a bicycle-control tower in my front yard.

Adam’s champagne-colored Buick has already made two passes.

P.S. Before my knee injury turned me into neighborhood traffic enforcement, a shelter dog named Garnet briefly convinced me to stop narrating everything and live in the present. You can read that piece here: “My Meditation Coach Weighs Fifty Pounds and Likes Belly Rubs.”

That is Sparta. And this is Darla.

After a recent trip to Greece, I felt compelled to revisit Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire. It’s one of those historical novels that makes the ancient world feel immediate rather than preserved behind glass. Pressfield is less interested in marble-statue heroics than in fear, discipline, sacrifice, and why people stand their ground when leaving remains technically available.

It also pairs surprisingly well with this week’s newsletter. The Spartans display roughly the same indifference to personal safety as suburban children on bicycles, though they are better organized and considerably more likely to maintain formation. Read it for the sharp prose, the brutal battle scenes, and the deeply human portrait of people confronting impossible odds…then remember it the next time you nearly flatten a mop-headed 10-year-old cruising on his Huffy.