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 bi...