Learning to ride a bike (again)

The GRID bike bay at Sloan Park in Mesa, Arizona.

I’d forgotten that when riding a bike, there is always a light breeze blowing on your face.

Riding a bike transforms ordinary street infrastructure like parking lots into playgrounds and double-dog-dare-you obstacle courses. Curbs become invitations for mildly courageous feats, like yanking the handlebars up just as the front tire leaves pavement in an attempt to land on the street under the curb with only the bike’s back wheel.

To ride a bike, even if only at moderate speed, is to grab velocity's hand and tweak gravity’s nose as you both ignore its incontestable authority. Bike riding is a joyous act of rebellion against physics itself. As I rode, even though I remained firmly on the ground, I still had the giddy, happy sense that although this wasn’t actually flying, it surely must have something to do with it.

How had I forgotten that?

It took only a few minutes for everything I’d forgotten I loved about bike riding, presumably buried under the heavy detritus of adulthood, to return with physical force.

I was an adventurous bike rider as a kid. I rode my bike down stairs and hardly ever had my hands on the handlebars (after all, there was a Slurpee to sip and a bag from the comic shop to hold).  I popped wheelies everywhere I could, off of curbs, speed bumps, driveways. Riding a bike was one of my favorite things to do, and I don’t know how I let myself abandon it so completely.

It all came back to me. The freedom that accompanies being fully in control of and connected to your speed. The urge to pedal a bit harder, a bit faster, just to see how fast you can really go. The electric zing of leaning into a turn, the jubilant, ever-so-slightly scary triumph of riding with no hands.

Yet for all the unexpected childlike joy that riding a bike again filled me with, I was also, unfortunately, simultaneously reminded that I was also now an adult.

Thus an attempt to pop a wheelie off a speed bump was abandoned at the last second due to horrifying images of insurance paperwork and even more medical debt, the scourge that brought us to carelessness in the first place. As the spouse of a traumatic brain injury survivor, I can’t deny the prospect of falling felt far more plausible and dangerous than it had when I was a kid.

So I admit even as the carefree joy of riding returned, light and clear as sunlight on my skin, I simultaneously leaned into turns just a bit less than I perhaps would have otherwise. The urge to see how fast I could go while making that turn, though still thumping within in, was swiftly dismantled by a litany of potential consequences.

My body was no longer an afterthought, if it had ever been a thought at all when I was younger. I have knees that ache on occasion now, and am pedaling far more weight. I must be mindful of my posture lest I get lower back pain. Scuffing my shoes or needing new clothes is no longer an issue for my parents to take care of, but rather an issue that impacts our household budget.

Yet though these thoughts flitted in and out of mind, they cast only brief shadows on the effervescent happiness that bubbled up inside me. I felt like some neglected version of myself had been freed from a cave into the sun, and I know I’ll never turn back.

I didn’t forget how to ride a bike, but I didn’t exactly remember, either

My husband and I went to Riverview Park in Mesa on a slightly-less-than-scorching afternoon to remind ourselves how to ride bikes. (We weren’t carless yet, so we drove the park. Ironic, I know.) Technically, I suppose it’s more accurate to say we rode around Sloan Park, because Cubbies and huge swaths of pavement and that’s where the GRID bikes were.

The reason for our little test-ride field trip was that aside from a from five minutes on a friend of a friend’s bike a few weeks prior, and a wobblier-than-I’d-care-to-admit test ride on a bike kinda like the bike I plan to get, I hadn’t ridden a bike in over 20 years.

That first brief stint on my friend-of-a-friend’s bike went fairly well. I didn’t fall, successfully navigated a speed bump and even pedaled while standing up.

The test ride on the bike that was kind of like the bike I was going to order also went fine, objectively speaking, but I admit that as I pedaled down the paved canal path near Rage Cycles (a really fun shop in Scottsdale, by the way; definitely check it out) I felt a bit nervous and unsteady. I didn’t fall or anything, though I did have to dismount to make a sharp turn in order to head back and found my ability to judge braking distance had diminished.

Still, I didn’t fall or crash, which was reassuring.

Both experiences lingered, however, so I wanted to get back on the saddle for a more significant amount of time. I wanted to really, truly re-learn how to ride a bike.

GRID Bikes

As I’ve stated before, I’m not a cycling enthusiast or expert. I’m not even sure I’d qualify as a novice. So I can’t really speak to the quality of the bikes we rented through the Grid Bike system. They were what I would call cruiser-type bikes (though technically they may be hybrids; again I am not claiming specific knowledge) with a handy basket welded to the front and three gears.

The bike was in good condition as far as I could tell and adjusting the seat was simple. Using the app to reserve the bike was easy and, once we could find a back screen that hadn’t been burned out by the sun, using our account number to unlock the bike was a simple, two-step process. You enter your account number and, once verified, can remove the U-Lock. A timer starts and though the per-diem rate is $7 an hour, you only pay for the time you use.

As a casual user, the GRID bike system seems like a great solution if you, like us, don’t have a bike but can’t (or just don’t want to) bus or light rail to wherever you want to go.

Anticipation

Having spent a couple of hours zipping around Sloan Park, I do feel much more confident about riding a bike. In fact, it’s fair to say I’m more excited about getting a bike than ever now, a feeling long, 100-degree plus trudges to the bus stop, while laden with my gym bag, has served only to reinforce.

That said, I still feel a bit nervous. I’m looking into finding a basic bike maintenance class. I know from research and talking to my bike-riding friends that I should ride on the street and have mixed feelings about this. Oak Street is one thing; Thomas is another. I suspect I will have to ease into it. But I already know I would rather ride a bike to the gym (even in this still-too-hot weather).

We’re still a couple of weeks away from bicycle bliss, but I’m hoping to get back to a GRID bike station in the evening sometime soon now that the nights are a bit cooler. After all, practice makes perfect. 

And yes, I kind of want to pop wheelies again, too.