(iphone pic of our matching beach cruisers at Huntington Beach last year. husband missed his "real bike")
My husband loves to ride his bike. He is really good at it, and really fast. He would ride his bike every single day if he had the time. He loves to go on 40 mile bike rides at 5am with his other bike riding friends. He loves wearing his fancy biking clothes, and he enjoys training for and participating in triathlons. He picked out all his components (I think thats what that are called) and built a bike that was exactly the way he wanted it. It makes me happy to see him do something he enjoys so much.
I also enjoy riding my bike. It is nothing like my husbands fancy bike, it is an aqua beach cruiser, and I think that there are probably a thousand more exactly like it because its really pretty. I bought it because I liked the way it looked, and knew it would be perfect to ride around the neighborhood with my boys. My 7 year old son can ride his bike faster than I can, I'm pretty sure. I enjoy riding at a leisurely pace, and I don't ride very often. But when I do go on bike rides with my family, I love it. I even branch out occasionally on my bike selection.
Do I need to ride my bike like my husband does? Am I required to up my skill level and the difficulty of my rides just because there are others who are much faster, much more skilled, and have far more time to train than I do? Are my bike rides less special because other people have the same bike I have, and I didn't pick out one of a kind components? And most importantly, do I have to wear stretchy bike shorts with the padded bum?
(Please don't make me wear these)
Nope, because I love riding my pretty beach cruiser around my neighborhood with my munchkins at a leisurely pace, when I have the time, in my normal clothes, and it is the perfect temperature outside. And not at 5am. That is what makes it enjoyable for me. My husband has an entirely different list of things that be loves about riding his bike. Thats that great thing about bike riding.
And that, my quilting friends, is my response to this whole dumbing down of quilting debacle.
Interpret as you'd like.
*Speaking of bikes, the bike fabric in the last post is by Michael Miller and is called Bicycles. The store I bought it from ran out, so maybe google it? And yep, that was purchased for the husband. He's been hounding me for a new quilt for a while now... maybe I should get going on that?
