"Don't Look Back" 8" X 10" Acrylic on Canvas

Don't Look Back by April M Rimpo

I think with this painting I have now painted bicycles sitting at the side of the road, people just out for a ride, commuting to work, in triathlons, and now with Don't Look Back a cycling team on an indoor course.  Perhaps the only cycling activity I have missed is people on mountain bikes.

People often ask if I am a cyclist. I wish I could answer "yes". I haven't ridden regularly since my early 30s when I was trying to get back in shape after the birth of my son.  I am a very clumsy person so the flat terrain around our home in Arizona was perfect for me. During the middle of the morning, before the temperatures rose to their peak, I'd go out to ride. Commuters were off to work and the side streets around our home were fairly empty. There were even wide off-road paths where the clay was baked hard allowing me to travel much like on pavement. I'd often see Roadrunners and occasionally wild animals. We lived near an Indian Reservation that I passed on my ride allowing me to occasionally view a coyote in the distance. It was a lovely time.

For twenty years we've lived in a small East Coast town with narrow winding roads and lots of hills and dales. I haven't ventured out on my bicycle since right after we moved here. I found the constant cars passing me on those narrow roads much too intimidating, knowing how unstable I feel on a bicycle in the first place. My bike sits in the basement awaiting me with the bike helmet poised nearby, tires flat from neglect. But I love to watch cyclists and feel their energy as they fly by, exciting me to paint them and live vicariously through them. 

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