My Bike

[shanmonster]

I was six years old when I first learned how to ride a bike. My bicycle was bright yellow and had chopper handles and a shiny black banana seat. It was a pretty standard bike for the mid-seventies, and it was given to me by a woman my family was visiting in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. When I finally learned to ride the bike, I was living in a trailer park in Saint John, New Brunswick. Riding the bike was tricky. You see, all the roadways were covered with crushed gravel. It's not the most forgiving surface to learn on, especially when it comes to falling down, and I did a lot of that.

Nonetheless, the roads were fairly level, and I made pretty good progress.

A month or two later, we went to Newfoundland. I don't even remember exactly where in Newfoundland we were, or who we were visiting, but I do know it was along the north coast. Newfoundland's coasts are corrugated with steep graded hills. The people we were visiting had a little boy the same age as I. Like me, he had just learned how to ride his bike.

He asked me if I'd like to go bicycling in the cemetery behind his house. Eagerly, I said yes, and Dad got my bicycle out of the truck. I hopped on, and together, the little boy and I pedalled our ways up the steep hill of the graveyard.

Once we panted our ways to the top, we decided to zoom back down the hill.

This is where my lack of hill-training caused my first major wipe-out. Going faster than I'd ever gone before, I ended up with some very serious wobbles. The same thing happened simultaneously to my new friend, and we slid down the last gravel-dusted third of the hill on bloodied knees and elbows. Our bikes lie unattended on the hill while we, spraying tears and oozing blood, squalled our ways back to the house.

I don't think I attempted another hill for several years.

After such unauspicious beginnings, it's pretty hard to believe I ended up becoming a long distance cyclist twenty years later.

Comments

[chrysippvs.livejournal.com]

Off topic. But I always forget that you are on the eastern side of Canada. Have you even been to the Viking sites up that way?

I still have scars

[superdaintykate.livejournal.com]

My Worst Bike Wipeout occurred when I was riding with my mom in our neighborhood. Mom was riding behind me and said something I couldn't hear. I turned to ask her what she said, skidded on a patch of gravel, and wiped out hardcore. Mom had coaster brakes on her bike and couldn't stop or swerve in time, so she ran over me. I had huge scabs on my knees, hands (front and back), wrists, nose, chin, and forehead...they were so thick they grew over my bandages and we had to pick out the gauze thread by thread.

Turns out she said, "watch out for that gravel."

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

Nowadays? Oh, maybe ten blocks or so. I haven't had the opportunity to do any big trips in a while. My work and class schedule don't allow it, at the moment. I'd like to go for at least one longish trip before the month is out, though.