Learning to ride

My first bike looked a lot like this one. Take away the training wheels and the chain guard and paint the bike black, add colorful beads on the spokes, and add another pad on the top tube (top bar) and that was my bike. I got it when I was 6 years old as a birthday present from my parents. I loved it! The only problem was that I didn't know how to ride. I assume most of you experienced something similar. So the first thing to do was to learn how to actually get on the bike by my short little 6 year old self. This was really pretty hard. I remember standing on the front porch and attempting to lift my legs over the seat (saddle) and trying to somehow get on without sliding off and having to start all over again. Finally I would get on and pedal once or twice and then fall over. For the next few days, my knees and hands were scraped up pretty good, but the scrapes and bruises provided motivation to learn.

It didn't take long to learn either. Once I could stay on, I spent my time riding in circles in the street in front of my house because I wasn't allowed to ride up and down the street alone. Although I completely understand the reasoning behind not letting your 6 year old ride away on his bike now, at the time I thought it was a crutch. Here I am trying to become the best biker on the block and I can't even ride up and down the street by myself? So I rode in circles and in the field next door. I even took the jumps! Not that I actually jumped off them--I mostly rode (or walked) over them. I was sure not to go too fast so I wouldn't fall down. I don't really like crashing. It's not fun, but that's pretty much a given.

And that's how my biking story began.