A New Generation of Bicycle Riders at Cobb Hill

Biking comes in various forms at Cobb Hill, from Jesse who commutes via bicycle in all weather to many folks who participate in annual bike rides to raise money for cancer research or to combat hunger in Vermont.

There are usually kids to be found on bikes at Cobb Hill, and many a child has learned to ride a bike down the gently sloping run of the driveway. I remember a group of girls, now teenagers, whose bikes each had names suggestive of ponies, and who trained chickens to balance on handle bars, and I always smile when I see Maeve riding her fancy pink bike while wearing barn boots.

This summer, I would give the award for adventurous biking to Charlie and his cousin Ben who spent much of last week building and then using a series of wooden ramps to, for a second or two, defy gravity in fearless acts of bicycle aviation. And I'm pretty sure that the architect who designed the 'outdoor amphitheater' near the common house, with its bowl shaped earthen edges, never pictured it as the basis of a bike maneuver known as the "toilet bowl". On the other hand, he was once an eight year old boy himself, so maybe he did!