Don’t talk to me about E bikes.

None of them accommodate

my extremely short legs, not short

for a Scottish Pict, but too short for the E bike.

I’m assigned the kid’s bike and advice to keep

my power setting at “turbo.” Thirty-eight kilometers

to the Black Forest, along river trails, through suburbs,

across asparagus fields, up quaint mountain lanes.

I pedal like the old witch in The Wizard of Oz,

fast, leaning over handlebars that

keep sliding downward into their shaft.

I pedal like the fierce Pict that I am.

I ride to the top of the ruin, to the bistro

for a birthday lunch, to the farm for schnapps.

The humid heat climbs into the nineties.

I am now seventy-two, but I keep pedaling.