A girl can dream

My issues with bicycles go way back. What’s the average age when children get their training wheels? Let’s start there. Our house had a large terrace in back with steps on either side leading down to the yard. The length of the terrace was lined with a cactus garden. Do you know where we’re going with this?
The day came when my father surprised me by removing my training wheels. He had such confidence in my ability to transition to a big girls’ bike that I did not want to disappoint him. I embarked onto the terrace and within seconds veered off the edge, straight into the cactus garden.
It gets worse. My parents had friends visiting. Witnesses not related to me watched as my mother laid me over her lap, pulled down my pants, and proceeded to pull out cactus needles one by one.
Oh, the shame.
It was downhill from there.
There was the time I discovered the difference between girl bikes and boy bikes by dismounting the wrong way. Even now, my girl parts wince at the memory.
There was the time I rode straight into a tree because I did not know until after the fact that sometimes there are no brakes on the handles and that the only way to stop is by pedaling backwards.
And let’s not neglect to mention the time I bicycled too close to the curb and when the wheel rubbed up against the sidewalk, I began to fall in slow motion, went over a fence and landed in some poor person’s tomato plant patch.
My ten year-old self had envied the skill of Jennifer Beals in the opening sequence of Flashdance as she cycled through steam and cobblestone streets with urban panache. I finally accepted I would never be Jennifer Beals.
And then I learned of in-line skates.
I watched an Olympic-related special on TV about an ice skater who trained during the summer months by skating up Colorado mountainsides. I can picture her now, Olympically-fit, cute as a button (as is the tendency of ice skaters), skating UP A MOUNTAIN on in-line skates.
Perhaps I couldn’t control bicycle wheels, and sure, awkward and unwieldy handlebars stymied my efforts. But wheels attached to my feet? This, I could manage!
I received a pair of Rollerblades for my birthday. It was as if the box alone would transform me into someone who could zip uphill without exertion. By now I was in college. I envisioned myself becoming one of those hip kids, weaving fearlessly in and out of traffic, zooming from school to job, the wind in my long, flowing hair. Of course in this fantasy, my tummy would be taut, as well.
That’s not quite how it turned out. You’re shocked, I know.
I wasn’t terrible. I could get from A to B. I wobbled but a little. I got the hang of it. I went rollerblading with a friend one night after we had been drinking. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The upside was that it made me less frightened of speeding downhill in the dark. The downside was that my inebriated confidence made me less cautious about the bump at the bottom of the hill. The upside was that it didn’t hurt so much.
The demise of my rollerblading dreams came when I was felled by a one-two combination of a loose ankle buckle and a bad-ass pothole. I still have the scars where the pebbles embedded themselves into my knee. I was miles from home. The pain of the fall, my inability to get home easily and my newborn fear that I would fall again sealed the deal for me. I was just not good at this whole wheel business.
I decided that I was an excellent pedestrian and I should stick with what I do well.
And anyway, I like walking.
Naturally, I married a man who treats his bicycle like an appendage. Completely uninterested in recreational biking, O. sees bicycles as the ultimate exercise in practicality. He regularly tries to convince me of this. Walking to a movie, “we’d be there by now!” Waiting for a bus, “we’d be there by now!” Explaining why he was late meeting me, “well, I couldn’t take my bike, so of course I’m late.”
On vacation in Berlin, we rented bikes for a day. It had been years since I was on one. I was trepidatious, to say the least. I pedaled behind O. cautiously, forcing him to stop and wait for me at regular intervals. And then we came to a large intersection where he headed into the far left lane without warning and turned left as the other light turned green. I had no choice but to follow as four lanes of traffic moved towards me while we cut across the length of the road to end up on the right hand side. O. nonchalantly continued on into a park and started to comment on the prettiness of our surroundings. In reply, I lit into him. I accused of him of trying to get me hit by a car. I had been terrified. I was shaking and crying. (Yes, yes, I was a total wimp, but in my defense, please refer to the aforementioned “not good at this whole wheel business.”) My dramatic tour de force petered out, and we ventured forth tamely.
I still want to be that woman who rollerblades down the Bowery and through Chinatown every morning to get to work. I want to whip through town with ease and a devil-may-care flair. Alas, such is not my fate. Not if I want to stay in one piece.
Nowadays, I get my dose of risk-taking by jaywalking. It’s no joke: those bike messengers come at you from every angle. They’re lunatics! (, I say with envy.)