Behind the curve

So. It turns out falling in love with the idea of bicycling and getting a bike does not automatically, magically enable one to ride said bicycle. What a rip off, right? Ugh. As beautiful as my new bike is, when it arrived in July, I had to confront the reality that I had just spent a chunk of change (we called it our "anniversary present") on something I barely knew how to use. 

While perusing bicycle blogs I've encountered the same late-to-bicycling story again and again. Lady (this is a gender neutral story, actually, but the neutral pronouns were sounding stupid) rode a bike as a kid and pre-car teenager. Lady and her gang of girl friends rode all over town! Meeting up at the park or riding to each others houses or going to get ice cream. Oh how carefree she was! The bicycle was freedom! Then Lady got her driving license, grew up, and forgot all about the glory of bicycles... until one fateful day when she climbed back on one, and voila! She was home! She was off! It was bike romance happily ever after! 

This is a great story, and I love and respect it, but whenever I encounter it I can't help but think "you weren't new to riding a bike, you were just out of practice. I would kill to have a history of bicycling skills." And to be honest, I owned a bike when I was a kid. A sweet, stingray-style, banana-seat bike with badass pinstripes/racing stripes. But I learned to ride late relative to the neighborhood (around 9?), and I never felt truly comfortable. I rode past 4 houses, through the dirt field, and then past one more house to my bestie's home a lot; but rarely, if ever, rode farther than that. By the time middle school rolled around just a couple years later, the bestie had moved and the bike was stored in the garage. 

In the interest of full disclosure: 6 or so years ago I acquired a beach cruiser, at which point I relearned the practice of pedaling and moving and maintaining balance, but soon after I got it I moved to a more hilly neighborhood, so I never rode it further than around the block to Walgreen's or the weekly farmers market, and never in traffic. 

Anyway, the point is I have never in my life been the carefree kid who rode her bike everywhere. I have had a few faltering starts, but have never come close to more than the most rudimentary competence at the mechanics of moving a bicycle forward. And now I have a bike that I am still only beginning to learn to ride.

After a few short, relatively miserable trips, I was feeling a bit resistant to riding. I knew my seat was too low, but I liked the stability. Unfortunately we couldn't quite tighten it enough and it kept slipping in weird directions while I tried to ride. We dropped both bikes off at Mission Hills Bike Shop when we left town for a week in early September, and finally having the seat raised and adjusted has made all the difference!

I'm not saying I'm any kind of super- or even intermediate-biker. Trust me, I am a total menace. I can't even take my hands of the bars to signal, so I wear my helmet and stick close to Matt. But I finally feel like I can do this. Or will be able to do this if I keep just taking the risk and riding to destinations. In the last couple weeks Matt and I have made a few trips of 2-3 miles each way. I walk up some of the hills, but I can ride up some of them too.

I'm getting better at looking around and seeing what's around me. I am totally in love! I want to ride my bike all the time! The businesses in my neighborhood and the surrounding areas are really bike-friendly--even giving bicycle discounts--and I love feeling like I'm joining this culture and getting even more involved in my community in a new way.

Unfortunately our stairs are super narrow, and with the 90 degree angle 2/3s of the way down (or 1/3 of the way up) I have a really hard time carrying it down the stairs, and simply cannot carry it all the way up. I've been stranded halfway a couple times when I've decided I was just being lazy not carrying it myself. So I have to rely on Matt to do the literal heavy lifting. This limits the quick impulsive spins that might give me more practice on my own (there isn't anywhere to lock up a bike for a few hours in our complex downstairs). Still, I'm feeling much better even in these last couple weeks. And now I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of moving into a first-floor apartment, if we can find a decent one. 

If you live in San Diego, beware of me! I am quite possibly bicycling through your area next! Try not to get too close, and I'll do the same. Don't honk! But do meet me for a beer at my destination!

 

Just Ride

Have you ever read a book that changed your life? I've had a few, from books that taught me to love reading, to books that introduced new genres to me, and even taught me about feminism. Yes, there have been numerous books that, looking back, I realize have significantly impacted my life. But you know what has been rarer? Books I recognized would change my life even as I read them.

I don't remember how I came across Grant Petersen's Bike treatise, Just Ride, but I read it while on vacation with my family of Memorial Day weekend this year, and I knew within pages that my life was changing.

As a fancy, tech-savvy lady of the 21st Century, I read this using the Kindle app.

It just made so much sense! Riding bikes could be regular transportation. Riding bikes could be fun! There's no need for special clothing or crazy light-weight materials--a steel bike designed for commuting is all we need. We should all ride bikes all the time!

Now you should know I am no athlete. Hahaha--as if you even suspected I might be! But seriously, I'm even less athletic than that. Riding a bicycle somewhere has always sounded about as fun as running there. Chased by a rabid grizzly bear. With a taste for girly human flesh. In other words, not fun at all. 

I don't know what special bike-loving drug is emitted by one's smart phone upon reading the Just Ride e-book, but I was converted. I admit that I really couldn't follow the chapters describing bike parts and fitting and whatnot, and the "bread makes you fat" chapter was good advice I'm familiar with not following, but the good, common-sense "hey, don't be a baby, get on a bike and ride it" stuff just spoke to me. The subtitle is "A radically practical guide to riding your bike" and it all sounded so radically practical there was no way I wasn't going to ride a bike as soon as possible. 

So I got a bike. 

Well, I talked about it with Matt, and he agreed that he was interested in riding. We looked around a bit, and in mid-July we ordered bikes. I had been rabidly consuming all the bike blogging and shopping the Internet has to offer, when I came across a previous entry on Petersen's "Bike Blug." In it he called the new Brooklyn Cruiser a "not dumb bike." Well, with such high praise, how could I resist? I couldn't. Plus, it was so cute. I am not going to pretend that even my feverish blog-reading had taught me much about bikes other than 1) I wanted one, and 2) there are lots of pretty ones. So a Grant Peterson endorsement of a pretty bike? WANT! Matt agreed that it looked like a decent, affordable bike, and admitted that he'd like one too. So we each ordered one. Yep, we have matching bikes now.

And that's the beginning of my bike love affair. I'll write more later, but I wanted to share that. How a short book changed my life even before I started making changes. xoxo

Aurgh! Fingerprints and smudging--the scourge of the modern era!

Tea Towels and Thoughtfulness

My friend Lynnea just returned from a two week trip to the UK and France. I must confess I'm pretty jealous of her globe-trotting ways, but it's her thoughtfulness that I most want to emulate. Every time she and her husband take a trip, they bring back a souvenir for Matt and I. Isn't that sweet? This time she brought me these:

They're darling little Babushka tea towels from Paperchase. Aren't they adorable? Lynnea knows how much I love matryoshkas and Russian folk art, as well as pop art and kitsch. I really appreciate her thinking of me on her travels. 

I really want to be a good friend like that, the kind of person who thinks of others even on vacation. I get such tunnel vision in my life. Really, it's like a tunnel with a screen over the end--I can only just make out even the things right in front of me. But I imagine thoughtfulness is like so many other virtues, and can be cultivated with practice. But how does one practice thoughtfulness? Hmm... It's something to ponder this month. The end-of-year holidays are an excellent time to practice thoughtfulness, don't you think? How would you go about cultivating consideration? I would love to hear how you make yourself a better friend and family member to your loved ones.