bicycle diaries

"I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like ..."

-- Queen



but it friggin' terrifies me.

i write this, perhaps out of guilt for taking the piss out of a coworker the other night when she said she couldn't ride a bike. the reason we gave her such a hard time is that she actually said she forgot to. please tell me you see the hilarity in that statement. leave me a note at the end of this if you need clarification.

so, where was i? ah, yes. it terrifies me. perhaps i can trace the terror back to the first time i rode one. (i seem to be able to trace a lot of my trauma back to the ages of 3 - 6)
the first time i remember riding a proper bike, aside from my cabbage patch powderpuff bike...

it was called 'blue angel.' i don't think that's the name i'd given her, it was written in pink and white on the side.

the way i remember it, i was about six years old. the bike came from a neighbour, or garage sale or something. it was as beautiful as the name made it sound. it had a banana seat. oh how i have to this day longed for another bike with a banana seat. but that's beside the point. i remember riding it, sans training wheels, and almost immediately crashing it into the curb of the parking lot i was in.

i don't remember who was there with me. if anyone at all. but i remember being in more pain than i had ever been before, and very worried that i was no longer a virgin.

i'm not sure if i ever rode that bike again. the next one i remember having was pink. it had streamers on the handles and coloured thingies in the spokes that made the coolest noise when i rode. it had silver fenders and training wheels. i think it was called 'rapido'.

then i remember a teal one my dad bought me. my best friend and i spent a summer biking around our neighbourhood, trying desperately to get lost.

when i outgrew it, we sold it to my cousins and he replaced it with a black and green one. fluorescent green. i pretended i loved it. i pretended the fluorescent green was cool, cause it reminded me of green day. but i was lying to myself and to him. and when it got stolen from in front of my house, i didn't care. i was relieved.

that was grade seven.

i made my way as a pedestrian, rollerblader and busrider for years. car-driving terrifies me just a little bit more than biking.

about five years ago, nanny bought me a fabulous bike from the old woman across the street from her. now that i think of it, it was like a grown-up version of blue angel. same colour, anyway. no banana seat, but the seat was big enough for an old lady's rump and that suited me just fine. there were fenders, like rapido. no hand breaks-- i had to pedal backwards to stop! the best part: the basket.

the novelty wore out though.

i tried rescuing it when i moved to the glebe, with the thought that i would cycle to work every day. i'm not sure that she was road-worthy anyway.

my most recent bike is apollo. ryan got her from someone. he says she owed him money anyway. so he fixed apollo up for me when i came to england in february. he expected me to be able to ride it, i think. but, much like the coworker i laughed at the other night, i was shaky and nervous, and didn't exactly enjoy myself.

i wasn't much different six months later:

August 16

I am a terrible driver. Terrible. I am afraid of being hit. I am afraid of hitting others. But that’s just me on a bicycle. You can’t imagine what I’m like in a car.

Luckily for everyone, Ryan and I don’t own a car. Just two bikes. Unlucky for me, it turns out I’m in rotten shape, and cycling to Tesco’s after work tonight was quite the feat.

The way there, I was loving the relatively new experience of cycling. (though it was a bit of a time squeeze for us to go after I got off work at 7:30, I really wanted to go to Tesco's since they seem to have the biggest selection of organic stuff. )

Seeing as I have no sense of direction, all I had to do was follow the leader, unfortunately, Ryan’s not the type to wait for the little green man, so often I found myself lagging behind.

The way back nearly killed me. £30 of groceries in a knapsack while biking up hill—not my idea of a good time!

today, on the other hand, was my best bike experience ever. the ground was flat-- no hills. we were on a bike trail-- no cars (nothing to be afraid of).

but i got a little cocky at one point. i was very annoyed at the group of women who were taking up both the left and right-hand sides of the path. i found myself critisizing. 'this is the EASIEST biking i have ever done. these women must be COMPLETELY out of shape. GOD. speed up!'

i later found out they had been biking for 8 hours straight. all the way from glasgow to raise money for cancer.

i made up for my awful thoughts by cheering the riders on as i rode home and they rode to the finish line.

and for the first time ever, i rode with no hands.

maybe it's not so terrifying afterall . . .