bike lessons

Until last week, my favorite Never Have I Ever (or I Never if you're playing under a weird name) fact was that I have never ridden a bike without training wheels. This invariably caused 95% of the players to lose a finger. Now I have to come up with a new fact.

I'd like to think that I picked up this skill pretty quickly - last Sunday morning after our church service, Katie took me out and told me to get on a bike and go. After about fifteen minutes of complaining and saying that I was too scared to balance myself and having her hold onto my bike and run beside me, I finally accomplished my goal. We didn't take the scary pathway and I walked my bike through some hills on the first day, but after that I was pretty much set. I didn't get a single scrape or bruise, though I was surprised at how sore one can get. I rode on a couple of different bikes of varying heights and levels of rust/age so I would also assume that my skills are transferable to other times and places. Throughout the rest of the week we rode our bikes to the beach and back, and though I came to a few jarring halts and always dismantled extremely awkwardly and am still not very good at hopping up on curbs without running into things immediately afterward, I would now say that I feel moderately comfortable riding a bike anywhere that is not Williamsburg.

When I was younger I couldn't wait to ride my bike. I had a nice pink one with stickers on it and probably a basket and of course training wheels. I rode it up and down my sidewalk like a champ. I think my brother pretended to be the newspaper boy for a while, which I obviously found super cool. One day, after envying my brother's Older and More Skilled status, I decided I was ready for the training wheels to come off. I attempted to ride my bike again. It did not work. I decided that I would like my training wheels back on. This was not allowed since I myself had decided that I was ready to be a Big Girl. So then I decided that I was perfectly content with my scooter and roller blades and who needs a bike anyway? My sister didn't have one and I knew I could have a lot of fun roller blading with her around the block (since that's as far as we were allowed to go, living on a busy street as we do).

And that is why I never learned how to ride a bike. When I got to college I thought it might be a useful skill since I could get to classes in less time, and I have a tendency to want to wait until the last second to leave Facebook and go to class. But our campus is very scary for bicyclists and even walkers - with so many loose bricks, I trip approximately three times a week. And my schedule is set up so that I have no quick walks anywhere (my only back-to-back classes are in adjacent rooms). And I still don't own a bike. So really, the only tangible effects that this experience has on my life are that now I have to be more inventive while playing Never Have I Ever and I will most likely force my children to learn how to ride bikes (...and teach them the motto never say never?).