16 Years Later

This morning, I strapped on Randy's bike helmet. Then I took Randy's bike helmet off and adjusted the straps and strapped it back on. Then I very carefully mounted his very tall, very old ten-speed bike. (How many of you remember 10-speed bikes? I'm thinking this bike is coming up on its 30th birthday.) And you all know that as soon as you actually get on a bike you better start pedaling or you'll be eating rocks. I didn't really want to eat rocks for breakfast so I took off.

It was kind of scary to be riding a bike. I haven't ridden a bike for 16 years. And yes, I had to think about that. As I pedaled carefully along our country roads, I tried to remember the last time I rode a bicycle. It was, I believe, right around my 21st birthday.

I was dating this man named Karl who liked to ride his mountain bike extreme distances for fun. He decided that we should go mountain biking for a date. I'm really not the athletic type so it probably took him the entire summer to convince me to get on a bike. It was a Saturday and my sister (let's call her Bear) and I had just canned a bazillion quarts of peaches. (My mother was on her way out of town and had given us instructions and said, "There's only enough for about 7 quarts. It won't take very long.") 24 quarts and the entire day later, Karl picked me up in his teeny, tiny car. We drove off to a trail he knew. We hopped on bikes and away we went.

I don't remember much on the way up to the top of the trail except that I was eating a lot of Karl's dust. On the way back down, there seemed to be more traffic. It was a Saturday night! Didn't these people have anything better to do? Evidently, neither did I.

I remember the trail followed the hill and the hill was on one side and creek was on the other...except that the hill went up and the hill went down. The creek was at the bottom and the trail was somewhere in the middle. At one point, the trail got skinny and I was focusing so hard on not falling off the trail that I didn't see the rock in my path. Next thing I know, I'm tumbling through weeds and dirt and over rocks and there's a bike that's supposed to be part of me and now it's not. When I finally stopped rolling down the hill, I was happy to realize that nothing was broken, but there was blood. Eventually Karl realized I wasn't behind him anymore and he came back for me. I think I made him walk the bike the rest of the way because I refused to get back on. In fact, I think that was the end of Karl. We probably mutually decided that we weren't a good match. (It should be noted that he and Bear spent the rest of the evening laughing at me while I doctored my scraped-up self.)

That was the last time I rode a bike until today. This morning, I pedaled that old bike 5.5 miles. It actually felt pretty good. I was careful to stay in the middle of the rode (thank goodness I live in the country) so as to avoid gravel at the edges of the road. I'm happy to report that I did not crash and burn. Not only that, but now I am going to be buying myself a bike.

And my own helmet.