Did you wonder what you were going to do when most summer camps were shut down because of COVID? For a lot of kids, this past summer meant they were not going to be able to go to summer camp.
I was lucky because I was able to go to a summer camp I really like. It is a bike camp! I really like this camp, because apart from getting the great exercise you also get to make some new friends and just have a lot of fun, and I mean a lot! One week before this camp began, my parents woke me up at nine a.m. with my favorite song, and I knew this was going to be a great day. My family went out to breakfast at a delicious bakery. Then, we all went to the park. It had been the perfect day. I thought in my head, can the day get any better than this? During dinner, I asked if I could have some dessert.
My parents said, “I have something even better. We signed you up for the bike camp you like!”
I replied,
“Wow that’s really cool. Thanks so much!” I thought in my head, oh well maybe it can get better. I felt an incredible amount of joy.
My name is Juli and if you haven’t noticed I love biking. Apart from loving to bike I also love to play soccer, make art and play football! Juli also likes to play video games and loves to listen to music.
The bike camp met on Lake Street, but we biked all over San Francisco. This was my fourth time going to the camp, but that doesn’t make it less fun! Our average ride was about twenty two miles a day. It was not as difficult as I thought it would be. The ride was certainly long, but not really all that hard. During the three weeks of camp, we rode to the Sunset, Marin, the zoo, and multiple beaches along the coast.
The last day of camp was definitely my favorite because we biked all the way up to Twin Peaks. After that, we went up to Marin and crossed the Golden Gate bridge. Riding up to Twin Peaks, we could not even stop for breaks, because it was so steep. If we stopped, it would be impossible to get back on the bike and keep going, because the bike was on such an angle. When you are on a bike and you come to a steep incline and then you stop, it is extremely hard to get back on the bike because you can not change your gears and the bike tends to fall backward, even the kickstand does not prevent the bike from tipping backward.
About five minutes away from arriving at the top of Twin Peaks, there was an extremely challenging part. The road became a trail and if we didn’t want to fall we had to stand while pedaling. If not, our bike would slip on the dirt. I almost fell, but luckily I still had treads on my tires. My friend, Eric, has a road bike and those tires have no treads, so he fell multiple times. He almost broke his derailleur and his rail! Reaching the top, we paused for our water break. We were still breathless even after we drank some water and stopped to rest for ten minutes.
Heading back down the hill was a gift. As we started to ride downhill I could see and hear the wind whooshing past my bike. I could feel my moist hair stick to the inside of my helmet.
“That downhill run lasted at least fifteen minutes,” Eric said Once we finished, my sweaty hands were red and black from gripping on my handlebars so hard.
Crossing the Golden Gate bridge was noisy. The good thing was that there was little to no tourist traffic, so we had the whole left side of the bridge to ourselves. We could even talk to each other.
I said, “Hey Eric do you want to ride home with me?”
“Yeah sure,” replied Eric.
Then Brian asked me, “Do you want to come to my house after camp and hang out? We can maybe invite Eric too!”
I said, “Sure!” So we all agreed to meet at Brian’s house after camp.
Brian became distracted and looked over to the side of the bridge to take a look at the view. As Brian looked to the side, my wheel collided with his and we both fell over.
Our CIT said, “You need to pay attention while you’re riding.” I barely heard what our CIT was saying because I was looking at the clear ocean, and how I wish I could jump in and swim even though I would get hypothermia because the water would be freezing.
Once we got to Marin, we had another water break. Climbing a hill that was a little bit less steep took longer than climbing the Twin Peaks. We rode just half the way up the hill in Marin. Stopping in the middle, there was a round-about, followed by an even longer and more fun downhill ride that was a dirt trail. I enjoyed the thrill of that incredible downhill because of all the sharp turns. It was really exciting because it was on a high mountain and there were no railings. It turned out to be my favorite dirt trail! I screamed to everybody,
“ Let’s GOOOOO!” Then I realized I had said that out loud, and I said,
“Ummm… sorry”
“ I know, it looks so fun, right!” Replied Eric. Our teacher said,
“Eric and Juli stop talking and listen please.” I peeked in between some people to get a better look at the beautiful view of the long but amazing downhill ride. I felt like I wanted to scream this is the best day of my life!
The downhill run had seven little bumps that were perfect for jumping on a bike. As we started to go down, I could tell I was going to love it. When we hit the first jump, I could not get up into the air. On the second jump, I went high into the air, It felt so good. It was my first time jumping on my bike, and I loved the feeling of knowing I had mastered a new skill. Once I did that, I felt I could do anything on my bike. Even though it was obvious I couldn’t. On the third and fourth jumps, I flew as I soared into the air. On the fifth jump, I accidentally turned my wheel while in the air, and I almost fell. The idea of falling made me decide not to try the sixth and seventh. My final jump had so much speed that I skidded on my bike so hard that I left a little dust cloud. For those who don’t know what skidding is, it’s when you hold the back brakes and lean left or right and the back tire stops making the front tire stop. That makes the bike skid. Skidding and drifting are the same thing.
It was coming close to the end of our ride and our teacher and our CIT’s said,
“You have the option of going up another hill or just stopping now.” I thought to myself, whatever goes up has to go down, so I chose to climb it. A couple of my friends and I were the only ones who wanted to do the hill. We followed our CIT’s who had become our good friends.
At the halfway point of the hill, we got to the part where it started to descend, and there were more jumps. The jumps were on a steep incline so I decided not to try them. I was flying down the hill holding on for dear life when a wild deer approached my bike.
I screamed, “Oh my gosh stoooop!” I froze in my tracks.
I didn’t want to hit him so I slammed on my brakes! I had forgotten about my friends, and how they were still going full speed behind me.
I yelled back to my friends who hadn’t seen what happened with the deer. “Look out! Deer ahead!”
The friend who had decided to get air on some jumps and was still going full speed downhill didn’t see that the rest of us had stopped for the deer. He crashed into some bushes then stood up. We were relieved to see he was okay. The deer had stopped in the trail and stared at us for a long time. It was kind of creepy and mysterious. After three minutes of staring us down, like maybe we were in some kind of trouble, he left and we continued on the downhill.
I looked behind me and said, “My gosh thank goodness we didn’t hit him. That sure was a close call.”
I enjoyed biking down the final part of the hill because there were a couple of stairs.
When I finished the bike ride on that last day I thought about all the fun things I had done over the past three weeks such as going to the beach, the zoo, the Sunset, Lands End, Cressy Field, the Presidio, and crossing the Golden Gate bridge. This turned out to be an amazing summer after all because of my bike camp experience. The special highlight for me was making some new friends that I will continue to see and be able to hang out with all year long.
As I was exchanging emails with friends I looked back three weeks ago and how extremely fun the rides were. I remembered talking with friends playing kickball and climbing up hills with them and me yelling,
“Oh god, my legs are killing me.” I was so deeply thinking about all the fun I had I almost didn’t hear my mom say,
“Juli it’s time to go.”
When I got home I looked back one final time and thought to myself, I sure am lucky that I got to go to that camp. 🙂