BELGRADE, Me. — You might have heard by now that 1969 was the summer of Apollo 11, and Woodstock, and Chappaquiddick. But in my neighborhood, out in the Philadelphia suburbs, it was the summer of Vrroom.

Made by Mattel, Vrroom — usually written with an exclamation point; Vrroom! — was a bicycle designed, as one commercial explained, “to look and sound just like a motorcycle.” A flick of a switch, and all at once your bike roared like a shovelhead.

All that noise didn’t make your bike go any faster, of course, but that was hardly the point.

I had forgotten all about Vrroom until last month. I was doing my usual bike circuit around the north half of Long Pond, here in Belgrade. As I turned left, I found myself accidentally merging into the Trek Across Maine, a three-day event in which cyclists ride from Brunswick to Augusta to Waterville and back again. It’s a huge event, drawing more than 2,000 riders; money raised during the trek benefits the American Lung Association.

It felt good to suddenly join the pack, and to find myself surrounded by all those other cyclists. But it was awkward, too, and not only because I wasn’t wearing a race number. More embarrassing was the fact that I was passing everyone, sailing up the hill on Castle Island Road in front of the Travis Mills Foundation for wounded veterans while everyone else was grinding away in low gear.