Let me start by saying that the adage, “It’s just like riding a bike.” is a lie – I have not been on my bike in a while and riding was NOT a straightforward or automatic process.
So, over the past couple of summers – despite my best-laid plans – I haven’t spent a lot of time on my bike. Actually, phrasing it like that makes it sound like there was a time in my past when I did a lot of cycling but that’s not true.
I have had one bicycle or another ever since I was a kid but I haven’t done any regular riding since I was maybe 12 or so. I occasionally used my bike for transportation when I was in my late teens/early twenties and I did a little bit of riding with my kids when they were younger but neither of them were particularly into cycling AND I found it very difficult to pay attention to their safety and my own.
I know there have been a couple of times here on the blog when I have mentioned my intentions to cycle more and I did put in some effort around those times but sooner or later some combination of lack of skill*, poor weather, general busyness, or good old ADHD time/task challenges would waylay my plans.
As you can probably tell, cycling keeps getting put into the “I’d like to but…” category for me so I was quite surprised to wake up last Thursday with the thought “I’m going to go for a short bike ride this morning.”
So, around 10:30, after I drove my eldest to work, I lathered on some sunscreen, excavated my bike from the shed, put on my helmet and took off.
Truth be told, I wobbled off but I was on my bike so I’m calling it a victory.
As I got to the end of my street, I discovered that the easy path to the parking lot I was going to practice in was blocked off by a road crew who were fixing some wiring. So I had to turn around (very awkwardly and with an audience – sigh!)to go another way, another way that was UP A HILL.
At this point, I was being asked to demonstrate two challenging things immediately. I have a bit of trouble making any turns so making a tight turn was a nightmare. And going uphill is, well, going uphill. (And yes, for the record, I *do* feel quite odd talking about my challenges amongst all the excellent cyclists on this blog.)
But I got through both challenges with a good combination of spite, perseverance, and walking my damn bike in spots and then had the reward of riding downhill to my planned practice area.
I got to the parking lot and decided that riding in a large oval around the (empty) parking spots would be a good way to practice turning in a low-risk environment. And because I was looping around the same number of parking spots, I could create a baseline measurement of my efforts and how I was feeling at different points in the loops.
It went ok.
I was, however, plagued by the thoughts that pop up whenever I am trying to build a skill. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing here? Is there something you’re missing? Is this hard because you need more practice or is it hard because you are missing some information? Maybe you are wasting time and effort here because there’s a little trick you don’t know? Maybe you should stop until you know what you’re doing?”
(Are those questions an ADHD thing? A Christine thing? A human thing? Since I have always been me, a human with ADHD, I don’t know how to distinguish which thoughts belong to which category.)
I didn’t let my brain talk me out of my self-defined practice though. I filed a few questions away to ask my husband later and just did what I set out to do.
And then I left for home.
It was only as I reached the end of the parking lot that I remembered the road crew and the fact that I had ridden downhill right before arriving at the lot.
That meant I had to ride uphill AGAIN right away and right after tiring myself out with my parking lot practice.
I did a ride/walk combination and got myself back home with minimal swearing but a fair bit of sweating and drank about 25L of water. (ok, it was probably far less than that but this version is more interesting AND it speaks to my perception of my refreshment.)
And I definitely plan to do it again this week.
Maybe even twice.
*I have always found cycling very challenging. I don’t make good use of the gears (a combination of a lack of practice and an utter inability to remember what to do when.) I find it hard to turn and I get panicky about it and often overcorrect. I am plagued and distracted by the feeling that I am missing an important piece of information that will keep me safe/make this easier. Yeah, there are a bunch of things.
PS – So, I just came back to this post to edit something and accidentally opened last week’s post instead. I had completely forgotten what I had written last week but I was delighted to discover that I actually followed a lot of my own guidelines when I decided to go out on my bike.