Dad's Stories: Bicycle Trip To Pilot Knob

BICYCLE TRIP TO PILOT KNOB. (written 5/2011)

In the early fifties bicycles were very popular. Every boy I knew and hung out with had a bicycle. We would ride them all over town and often take a rather long journey (to us) out in the country. About the longest trip my brother Bill and I made by bicycle was to Pilot Knob. This is the highest point in Bosque county. Pilot Knob is a hill 2½ miles east of Meridian in central Bosque County. It lies in a portion of the Grand Prairies generally characterized by rolling prairie with locally steep limestone slopes. Vegetation consists primarily of oak, juniper, grasses, chaparral, and cacti growing in deep to shallow stony clay and clay loam soils. We did this by bike as a challenge to our chums in Meridian. It was a favorite spot back in the early days for young people to ride by buggy and then spread a picnic and enjoy the scenic view. Few, if any, ever attempted to bicycle their way up the long incline to the very top.

As I recall this was my brother's idea. It was in the early fifties. After a restless night, we got up early one summer morning packed some sandwiches along with fruit and water then peddled off from our house with a great amount of enthusiasm and youthful anticipation.

Our plan was to ride our bikes to the top of Pilot Knob and then find a nice spot to picnic. Billy was on his bicycle Bluebird and I was on my faithful Western Auto Flyer, Red Bird. We'd been to Pilot Knob by car, but had forgotten that the entire trip was mostly up-hill. It took us quite awhile to reach the bottom of the Knob taking short rests now and then. When we finally reached our destination, we looked up the steep bit of roadway and had second thoughts about the practicality of pumping our bikes all the way to the top.

After a brief rest we started the climb. At the steepest part of the climb we'd zig zag back and forth on the narrow and precipitous road (an old Indian tactic for going up steep hills) slowly snaking our way upwards. We failed to realize that in so doing we were making the climb twice as long. At about halfway, much to our chagrin we had to take a short rest. We finally made it to the top feeling exhilarated and rather heady by our remarkable accomplishment. The view from the top of Pilot Knob is beautiful as you can see much of Bosque county.

We also brought a pair of binoculars and spent a considerable time inspecting and enjoying the surrounding countryside...trying to guess who owned the various farms and ranches we could see. I also had a small pocket telescope (I'd purchased at Riley's 5&10 store) that served me well in such instances.

We decided on a nice spot to eat our sandwiches and rest up for the trip home. At that particular time we discovered that the long trip back was overlooked when originally planning our adventure. Riding down the long slope to the bottom was not going to be a problem...but the rest of the trip back was going to be rough peddling and neither of us looked forward to it. Finally, we commenced our journey home. During our trip to the Knob we chatted a lot which included encouraging each other to hang tough and keep pumping. On the trip back we didn't talk much and had second thoughts about making it all the way back to our house.

At one point we considered stopping at a farmhouse and calling our mom to come get us. However, with a great amount of grit and determination we continued our ride home.

When we got home we excitedly shared our adventure with our Grandparents. Who seemed quite impressed with our feat, but questioned our reason for doing such a thing. Grandaddy said he'd been happy to drive us to the top of Pilot Knob. Our mother, as I recall was rather nonplussed over our triumph.


The remainder of the day we laid around trying to recuperate. That night...I suffered from leg cramps and woke Billy up while moaning in my bed and rubbing my legs. He turned on his bed lamp, got out of bed and went downstairs to get the Bengay, then returned and helped me massage by legs.

All hard fought victories come at a price and certain amount of pain and it appeared that I was the victim of laying everything I had on the table. Billy was older and stronger than me, but the only way you'd got me off my bike before reaching our destination was to shoot me.

All in all it was a very special day in my teenage life. We enthusiastically shared our achievement with our chums and they were duly impressed with what we'd accomplished. I don't recall anyone else having made the bike trip to Pilot Knob and back home. Possibly, our sharing details of the physically taxing adventure overwhelmed their desire to replicate it. Bill and me were close buddies and spent a lot of time together doing many interesting and fun things.

Next time, I'll share about building my boat in Future Farmers of America shop class and some of the adventures we shared on the Bosque river in the boat. Believe it or not...I never gave the boat a name...but it served us well until a Bosque river flood destroyed it.