Pretty much, every child gets a bike and learns how to ride it (without training wheels) when they around the age of seven or eight. It is one of those skills that you honestly never forget. You don't have to ride a bike for five years, and then you get on one for fun and look, it turns out that you have never forgotten how to ride a bike. One of those skills that you may not use every day, but when you need to use it -- boom, you can ride a bike perfectly. Or so I thought.
I have been riding my bike for as long as I can remember. I remember on my seventh birthday, a bright pink bike came rolling out of my parents' closet. With bright eyes gleaming with one look at that bike, I learned how to ride it without training wheels right on that day. I was just a girl, and it was just a pink bike, but we were honestly best friends. I rode it to school in the mornings, rode it to my friends' houses, and I have even ridden it in other states! I have always loved riding bikes.
Fast forward 12 years, and here I am in college that has over 27,000 students, and I tried riding my old green bike for the first time my freshman year. I should've already known all of the biking hand signals for turning and stopping properly because I am a resident of Oregon, however, I do not. Not knowing these signs the first time I rode my bike on campus caused me to collide with another bike. Not super hard, or anything, but enough to scare me away from using my bike for a while.
Now, I am a sophomore at my college and I have, yet again, fallen on my face because of my bike. It wasn't as embarrassing as I thought it would have been, but it was still pretty embarrassing, it hurt, and I was super frustrated with myself. I had not only my iPad in my backpack, but my recently restored MacBook Pro. Once I was laying on the ground, in the middle of the street, a huge wave of "oh, crap" came over me because I realized that around $2,000 worth of technology cushioned my fall. I got up and noticed that one guy saw me fall. Thankfully, it was only one, and not in front of a huge group of people, because that would have been absolutely mortifying. The poor guy felt so bad that I fell that he came over to me, made sure I was okay, and then checked out my bike to make sure that everything was up to his standards. (My seat is too high, he said). Then we both went on our way, bruised and all.
What I have learned from falling off of my bike this past week was that I actually have terrible balance, and I can't multitask while I am in motion. Needless to say, I won't be riding my bike and holding a coffee, or fixing my sleeve, or trying to put my sunglasses on because I will more than likely fall off. What a great start to my first Monday back in school.
