bicycling
I went on my first bike ride yesterday. First bike ride ever, at 30. Went about a mile and a half around the lake near my house.
30, you may ask? Well, I actually learned to ride when I was 11 or so. But I had a bike several years before that - blue, with a banana seat and Charlie’s Angels silhouettes plastered all over it. With training wheels, of course, and no gears. Somehow it ended up living in the abandoned chicken shack at my grandparent’s place. I’d haul it out to the field and ride it up and down a little rise along the fence. Back and forth and up and down over the grass. I don’t remember anyone really helping me much, but my grandpa sometimes kept an eye on me from his riding mower. (Of course, it’s also highly probable that refused any help offered.) Everyone thought that was a good place to learn, because my mother had learned there 20 years before and had ridden her bike all over the uneven turf.
I eventually got bored with the back and forth. That bike ended up rusting in the chicken house until I was older, when it got hauled back to my parents’ house. We had adopted three second cousins by then, and they all came equipped with bikes. I made the mistake of expressing interest, and so everyone determined that I would learn to ride. It was an entirely negative experience, involving much crying and yelling by all involved. I learned to ride well enough that everyone decided I would go up to the top hill in our neighborhood and ride down it. There was fresh gravel that hadn’t been well-tamped, and some dirt-bike riders who blew by close to me. I fell off and skinned everything. That’s what bravery will get ya, kid. I rode back and forth and up and down in the dip in front of our house for a few weeks, and then put the bike in the shed to finish rusting out. The next year I got a pink 10-speed racing bike for Christmas, or maybe a birthday. I had thought that with a different bike I’d be more interested, and that more gears would help with the hills in my neighborhood. But I hadn’t counted on being thrown so off-balance by bending over the handlebars, and that bike rusted out too.
That was the end of me and bikes. For 20 years.
This summer, my parents took up riding, and brought their hybrids up with them to visit. They’ve been enjoying it a lot, and are noticeably more compact after several months of riding the trails. I was curious. And they were patient. I rode up and down behind my garage for about an hour last weekend, and on Thursday Mom and I went around the lake. I white-knuckled it the entire way, chanting Don’t hit the lake. Don’t hit the tree. Don’t hit the people. I had to walk a little bit, since I didn’t entirely figure out shifting on hills and short-circuited over riding on a section that was street on one side, hill down to lake on the other side, and partially blocked by a utility truck. But I did the rest of it and didn’t fall over and didn’t end up in the lake or on top of any joggers. It was fun, all things considered. At the tail end of the trail, I even relaxed enough to notice there were trees around me.
They offered to buy me a bike, but there’s only about 3 weeks left in the riding season up here. I don’t have a proper place to store it, either. But those things will be dealt with by next spring, and that’ll give me time to do some more research and figure out what’s really needed this time.
Dude. I rode a bike.
30, you may ask? Well, I actually learned to ride when I was 11 or so. But I had a bike several years before that - blue, with a banana seat and Charlie’s Angels silhouettes plastered all over it. With training wheels, of course, and no gears. Somehow it ended up living in the abandoned chicken shack at my grandparent’s place. I’d haul it out to the field and ride it up and down a little rise along the fence. Back and forth and up and down over the grass. I don’t remember anyone really helping me much, but my grandpa sometimes kept an eye on me from his riding mower. (Of course, it’s also highly probable that refused any help offered.) Everyone thought that was a good place to learn, because my mother had learned there 20 years before and had ridden her bike all over the uneven turf.
I eventually got bored with the back and forth. That bike ended up rusting in the chicken house until I was older, when it got hauled back to my parents’ house. We had adopted three second cousins by then, and they all came equipped with bikes. I made the mistake of expressing interest, and so everyone determined that I would learn to ride. It was an entirely negative experience, involving much crying and yelling by all involved. I learned to ride well enough that everyone decided I would go up to the top hill in our neighborhood and ride down it. There was fresh gravel that hadn’t been well-tamped, and some dirt-bike riders who blew by close to me. I fell off and skinned everything. That’s what bravery will get ya, kid. I rode back and forth and up and down in the dip in front of our house for a few weeks, and then put the bike in the shed to finish rusting out. The next year I got a pink 10-speed racing bike for Christmas, or maybe a birthday. I had thought that with a different bike I’d be more interested, and that more gears would help with the hills in my neighborhood. But I hadn’t counted on being thrown so off-balance by bending over the handlebars, and that bike rusted out too.
That was the end of me and bikes. For 20 years.
This summer, my parents took up riding, and brought their hybrids up with them to visit. They’ve been enjoying it a lot, and are noticeably more compact after several months of riding the trails. I was curious. And they were patient. I rode up and down behind my garage for about an hour last weekend, and on Thursday Mom and I went around the lake. I white-knuckled it the entire way, chanting Don’t hit the lake. Don’t hit the tree. Don’t hit the people. I had to walk a little bit, since I didn’t entirely figure out shifting on hills and short-circuited over riding on a section that was street on one side, hill down to lake on the other side, and partially blocked by a utility truck. But I did the rest of it and didn’t fall over and didn’t end up in the lake or on top of any joggers. It was fun, all things considered. At the tail end of the trail, I even relaxed enough to notice there were trees around me.
They offered to buy me a bike, but there’s only about 3 weeks left in the riding season up here. I don’t have a proper place to store it, either. But those things will be dealt with by next spring, and that’ll give me time to do some more research and figure out what’s really needed this time.
Dude. I rode a bike.
posted by Lulu at 12:29 PM
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