The Girl Who Can't Ride a Bike

I am “the girl who can’t ride a bike”.

I guess to be accurate, I should say that I WAS “the girl who can’t ride a bike”.  But it was such a big part of my identity growing up, that the never formalized (but often teased about) nickname stuck in my psyche.

You know how most kids love to jump on their bikes and pedal around the neighborhood once they have figured out how to balance, brake, and GO?  Yeah, that wasn’t me.  I wasn’t that kid.

I am not sure WHAT really happened. The one thing I do remember is being on a bike in my family’s garage in Omaha, Nebraska trying to ride my bike.  It must’ve been winter, otherwise, why wouldn’t I have been outdoors??  But I think my foot slipped off the pedal and I know for sure my knee hit the handlebar.  It hurt.  I remember crying.

But I am guessing that it hurt my pride more than it hurt my knee. 

I think I was already past the age where kids were “supposed” to ride a bike.  But then and there I must’ve secretly made the decision that I would NOT ride a bike. 

Instead, I became “the girl who can’t ride a bike”.  I was very tiny for my age, and my mom was a good bike rider.  So instead of pedaling on my bike, I rode in a kiddie seat on the back of hers.  For YEARS.  Well past the age of being able to comfortably fit in it. 

I don’t know if I actually REMEMBER the feeling, or if I just have heard the story so many times that it FEELS like a memory.  My sisters used to make fun of me for riding in the kiddie seat.  They joked about how my skinny legs, bent in the too small seat, would make my knees stick out to the side. 

As I got older, I jumped in on the joking.  I would laugh at my own ineptitude.  Mock myself for being way too old to not know how to ride a bike. 

But self-deprecation sometimes comes at a price.  If you say you are stupid enough times, you start to believe it. 

·        Did you know that even though I am 10, I can’t ride a bike??  Funny, right?

·        Hahaha – I am 12 and I can’t ride a bike!

·        Oh my, isn’t it funny?  I was 16 and I can drive, but I can’t ride a bike!!

And on and on.  I became THE GIRL WHO CAN’T RIDE A BIKE.

I wish I could remember exactly how it happened, how I learned.  I am surprised I can’t.  I must’ve somehow erased that part of the story in my brain.  But what I DO remember is being 21 years old, living in Paris on a peniche (barge) on the Seine with my sweetheart, and riding a bike to the laundromat while carrying bags full of dirty clothes.

We must’ve borrowed our landlords’ bikes (they lived on the other half of the boat). David must’ve taught me to balance and pedal on the quay beside the boat – which was made of big stones and had to be very bumpy to ride on. 

But that part is a blur.

All I remember is being 21 years old on a bike with bags of laundry, navigating Parisian streets with David.  And being proud of my new-found ability.

That’s been decades now.  I have never really gotten into biking, but I am happy when we can jump on our cruisers in Florida and pedal through the neighborhoods on a still warm but not hot evening.  Most streets in Florida are flat so there are no major hills to conquer.

But we very rarely ride bikes in Arlington.  In fact, I don’t think ours had been touched for the last 3 years.  They just sat in the carport getting older and dirtier. 

A friend reached a few months ago out to say that she and her family were signing up for a bike ride and inviting us to join them.  It was the DC Bike Ride – 20 miles, no traffic (all streets would be closed) – a chance to see the city and monuments from a new angle.  Well, that sounded fun, sign us up!

At the time I naively figured that we would take time to get our bikes out a couple of months before the event.  We would clean off the dirt and cobwebs, have them checked out for safety, replace any tires that were bad, and most importantly PRACTICE. We would bike around the area and get in shape for the 20-mile course.

But instead of that, real life happened.  We worked.  We ran huge projects outside of work.  We watched tv.  We cooked.  And what we DIDN’T do was prepare. 

So, it wasn’t until 2 days before the event that we even really thought about it.  David pulled our bikes out and we squirted them with the hose.  We borrowed a bike pump from a neighbor and filled the tires, which incredibly did not have holes and still had air the next day. 

And this morning, a kind neighbor showed up at 6:30 am to hook our bikes up to her bike rack and drive us into DC. 

Today’s ride was billed as something that anyone with 2 wheels could do - even a 3-year-old.  Now come on…  If a 3-year-old could do it… 

It was a lovely experience.  There were what seemed like thousands of riders at the start. We were grouped into the skill level that we had registered for (with me SQUARLY IN BEGINNER, thank you very much).  They had a work-out led by some peppy people, music blasting, balloon art, and I got my first ever face painting (that wasn’t a thing when I was a kid). 

Then finally it was time for the beginners to hit the roads!  We got separated from our friends before we even got on the actual course but found our way back to them before eventually reaching the starting line.  And off we went!!

It was a great way to tour the city.  We passed monuments, rode over bridges, saw the sights. 

I was keenly aware that I didn’t want to be the person to pull our group back.  I didn’t want to slow the rest of them down.  (Full transparency, the only other organized ride I have ever done I did with our nephews when they were young.  I had worked an overnight shift the night before, didn’t get much sleep, once again did nothing to prepare for the event, and was NOT a good bike rider.  It was a sunset ride and by the end, I was literally the LAST rider in the event.  I kept pedaling through the dark, my sweetheart slowing down and riding by my side, as the police trailed me in the dark with their red and blue lights flashing.  I cried and cried, but kept pedaling.) 

That event was subconsciously on my mind today.  I didn’t want to hold our team up.  I wanted them to pedal fast, ride like the wind, have fun!  And if I fell behind, I would try to keep going (and hope to not be last among the thousands of participants).

One thing I learned today – DC feels flat when you are in a car.  When you are on a bike, not as much!  There ARE hills in DC.  Not big ones, but hills nonetheless.  And by mile 10 and 11 and 12, the hills feel bigger. 

I was sweaty.  My butt hurt.  And my legs were tired. 

I let myself get off my bike and walk it up 3 or 4 hills. 

I wasn’t alone in walking, but the walkers were the minority.  As we went up the hills by foot, the “stronger” bikers rode by.  At first, I was embarrassed.  I mean, what an obvious sign of weakness and failure.  I couldn’t even pedal up these relatively small inclines.

But I kept going. 

At one point I was riding with the 2 kids in our group.  I hadn’t seen the SHORTCUT TO THE FINISH LINE sign yet, but they did.  “SHORTCUT??  NO WAY!  WE ARE RIDING THE WHOLE COURSE!!” one of them shouted.  Well, I couldn’t make the shortcut turn to the finish line after THAT comment… 

So, I kept going.

I was getting further and further behind the pack.  My sweetheart stayed with me.  And then I saw it – the truck picking up the cones that marked the course…  That was the signal that, not that far behind me, the organizers were drawing the line of who would be allowed to finish and who would be picked up in a vehicle (or, if they kept riding, would no longer be on car free streets). 

Flashback to the sunset ride…  I started to tear up.  No!  Not again.  Failure.  The girl who can’t ride a bike.

I didn’t know how ingrained that self-hatred about my lack of ability was.  I hadn’t unpacked it from my psyche. 

I kept riding.

I was exhausted.  Another hill was in front of me – the 2^nd half of a bridge (So.  Many.  Bridges….).  But a team ahead of me found an out…  They cut through some barriers to the other side of the bridge – a shortcut.

I knew I had to do it.  Yes, this was a ride “a 3-year-old could do”.  But I was done.  I told the 2 teammates that were with me that I was going to cheat and took the shortcut.

There were still a couple of miles to pedal after that.  I pedaled alone, which was just what I needed.    

And when I finally saw the finish line coming up, I cried.  The fear of smudging my face paint had long since subsided (I figured I had sweat it off by then).  But if it was still there, I knew it would now be stained with tear marks down my cheeks.  I didn’t care.  The volunteers cheering finishers on probably didn’t know what to make of me – a grown woman crying at the end of what was to most a leisurely ride.

But I finished.

I cheated – probably cut 1.5 miles off the course.

I walked my bike up some hills.

But I rode.

I was no longer “the girl who can’t ride a bike”.

FINISHED