Bike

‘It’s just like riding a bike’, people say, when they mean that skills, once acquired, are never really lost.

For some, though, riding a bike is NOT ‘just like riding a bike’. Specifically, me.

I rode a lot as a kid: even had the requisite hot pink girls’ bike (with streamers on the handlebars: oh my). I remember coming off my bike many a time, and getting straight back on, grazed shins and all.

This changed when I was eight, and came off my bike so spectacularly that I decided bikes just weren’t for me.

It all started when I was visiting my grandparents, and had been allowed to go riding with a couple of older girls from the neighborhood.

To an eight year old girl in the 90s, twelve year olds were the absolute height of sophistication, glamor and coolness. This was before celebrity culture had really grown claws, so I, and my similarly aged friends, idolised our older neighbors/cousins/sisters like young girls today idolise the Kardashians.

Except, we aspired to our neighbours/cousins/sister’s super sleek high pony tails and scrunch socks (please tell me you remember scrunch socks), rather than Kim, Khloe and Kourtney’s questionable life choices involving videotape and diet pills.

Anyroadup, twelve year old sophisticates didn’t wear helmets, on account of their super high ponytails. So, I wasn’t either, because safety isn’t as important as a high, shiny, swooshy ponytail and being part of the cool peloton.

And, if the twelve year old cool girls were freewheeling down a big hill, I was coming along for the ride - even though the breaks on the bike I’d borrowed didn’t feel like they were working properly.

I think you can guess what happened next: my breaks failed, I crashed into a coppers’ log fence, knocked myself out, gave the twelve year old girls the fright of their lives (I should say here that underneath the cool they were actually really sweet and helped me limp home), and scored a graze on my chin that looked uncannily like a beard.

Looking back on it now, I can see that the universe was trying to teach me a valuable lesson: that suppressing my better judgement for the sake of being cool only leads to disaster (I mean, scrunch socks? Really?).

What I took away from the accident, though, was that Bikes Are Not Fun and I Will Never Ride Again.

But, eighteen years later, under the kindest and most watchful eyes of Zsuzanah Verona, I had another go at riding a bike, helmet firmly on and breaks thoroughly tested. I’ve gotten better at listening to what the universe is trying to teach me as I’ve got older. And what I learned yesterday was that:
• with a bit of help, and some gentle reminders to look ahead rather than down at my feet, that riding a bike actually is…just like riding a bike;
• riding a bike is just about the best fun ever;
• I don’t need to be part of a cool peloton when I’ve got a BFF like Zsuzannah; and, lastly
• a low chignon is really more sophisticated and helmet friendly than a high ponytail.