It's hard to say for sure exactly when the transition happened, when I crossed over into really being able to ride, because for a while our practices were so sporadic; it took me weeks between each lesson to dull my memory of the terror of the last and to work up my courage for another. So it's difficult to pin down just when my wobbly, panic-stricken jaunts of a few feet to a few blocks, punctuated by putting both feet on the ground, driving into things, and simply panicking until we gave up for the day and I wheeled the bike home, useless and defeated--graduated to me actually riding, turning on purpose, slowing down and speeding up intentionally, and successfully braking by using the bike's brakes rather than by yelling, jumping off, and tripping over my feet or the bike in the process.
I think my watershed moment was the first time I hit a curb dead on. I had just steered around a set of traffic cones Chris had placed for me to practice with and was feeling pretty good about myself, when I saw the curb coming directly up in front of me. My arms locked up in terror, which precluded me from steering, and, as often happens when I'm really afraid, I also forgot to brake. So I went full speed ahead and directly into it. At that moment my mind blanked out from sheer panic, so I have only Chris' word for what happened next: apparently my two years' training in martial arts took over, because I did a very impressive ninja leap off of the bike and rolled into a comfortable sitting position, with my butt on the curb and my feet on the road, and the bike landed gently on its side in front of me. All I remember is panicking, and then suddenly, to my surprise, finding myself sitting. I heard Chris a block or so behind me, calling my name. I was furious because I had been so stupid as to crash. Now I would be scared and ruin this otherwise successful day of riding (I had gone up and down the block and had steered round in circles without Chris holding on at all), and it would probably be weeks before I could try again. I was so angry that I smacked the curb very hard with my bare hand, to show it.
Later, wheeling the bike back to the house, I took stock and realized that, besides a slightly jostled rear-view mirror, the only damage from my very first crash was a sore palm.
It was a decisive moment for me. All along I had been nearly paralyzed by fear, by the possibility of crashing, sure that if I fell off of the bike I was going to be seriously, painfully injured, break something or sprain something or worse, die. In fact, death via falling off the bike seemed to me imminent and inescapable. And yet here I was, having crashed directly into a curb, and the bike and I were both uninjured.
After that day I swiftly grew more brave. Less than a month later we went on several long rides, long enough that I cold no longer deny that I did know how to ride a bike. On these Chris and I took the Burke-Gilman trail-- a beautifully shaded, paved bike trail that runs through Seattle and North to Bothell. By our first time on the Burke-Gilman we'd gone several times on trips round the lake near the house, up to 8 miles. Still, I felt shaky and couldn't get myself to stand up while riding. The first day we attempted the Burke-Gilman we went the wrong direction (we're famous for that), meaning to head Northeast to where there is a park on the beach, instead heading Southwest, but still managed to ride 16 miles, as we picked up the trail about halfway. A week later we came back and road to the trail's end and back: 30 miles, an unbelievable distance to me, twice as far as I'd ever managed to run in one go. It was a long, hot, grueling day, with us on the bikes for at least three hours, with a couple extra hours with breaks for food and water and for pushing the bikes up and down the several hilly miles to and from the trail (I was still too nervous to ride in traffic). We hadn't expected to ride so long or so far and hadn't brought enough food, and we were ravenous by the time we finished. The trail runs near my favorite Mexican restaurant, and when we finally reached it we got a table as quickly as we could and devoured a huge basket of chips while we waited for our tacos, consuming enough tamarind salsa in the process to make us both very queasy the next day. But we had covered 30 miles, and by the end of it there was no doubt: I knew how to ride a bike.
I had a bike when I was a little kid, something with white tassels on the handlebars, and training wheels. Someone--I remember a baby sitter--decided one day it was time to take off the training wheels and to teach me how to ride by myself. I was game for a try, so off came the wheels and I pedaled about three feet forward, and then fell directly sideways onto the parking lot in front of our apartment house, and bruised my arm. And that was that. We weren't much for try and try again in my family--our theory was, if you tried something and failed at it, that must mean you stunk at it for life and should therefore never do it again. Instead you should go do something you are good at, meaning something you've never failed at.
It took me years--or rather, it took Chris pointing it out to me over and over for years--to see what a prison this mindset becomes, limiting your field of what you are allowed or ought to do in life, narrowing your life into a series of smaller and smaller boxes of activities and careers you either haven't tried yet, can't fail at, or simply must continue to do out of necessity, whether you fail at them or not (such as walking and going to the bathroom). The great irony is that, without a doubt, you are going to fail in performance of everything at some point, especially when you first begin. Who hasn't tripped while walking, or dropped food on their own lap or--in the case of men particularly--peed on the toilet seat? These are all failures to perform perfectly, yet because they are necessities, if I made errors in these areas I ignored them and continued to eat, walk, and pee. But as a child I fell off my bike once, mildly bruised my arm, and that was that: I was rotten at biking, doomed forever, sure to only hurt myself more, and I should just give it up and never try it again, ever.
I think I declared as much to my mom and grandparents after the training wheel incident, and as far as I remember it was never contradicted. No one told me--and certainly no one made me--try again, have another go. The bike was simply put away and eventually sold. I am sometimes angry with my family for this sort of thing, but I can't really blame them. They too live in their own little prisons of failure that dictate what they can and cannot do, until there is very little left remaining. And theirs are worse than mine, perhaps, because due to Chris, I am learning to pull the bricks out of the walls. My family may do so too over time, but I think it is harder for them. Their prisons are bigger than mine; they've been working on them for longer.
Biking is the first time in my life I've ever been really, truly afraid of something and really truly awful at it, and kept doing it anyway. Except maybe for dating, which is another story. To my relief and shock, despite being terrified and awful when I started, continuing to do it has meant that I have gotten better. In fact, it's now clear to me that with sufficient practice, there's no reason I can't be quite good at biking, even though the first time I gave it a go as an adult I had a full meltdown just trying to get my feet on the pedals. I honestly don't know if I've ever been worse at anything. Yet a month ago and a few times since, I biked 30 miles. And four months from now I'll be biking around 225 miles a week.
Okay, putting it like that is a bit intimidating, but I don't have to get there all at once. Unlike the several long-distance bike trekkers whose books I've read recently-- Rob Lilwall, who cycled 30,000 miles, starting in Siberia in winter, without having trained first; Polly Evans, who cycled through Spain on a bike she'd never even ridden once before leaving; and Mark Beaumont, who circumnavigated the globe on a bike, doing 100 miles a day, and trained primarily by running--I actually am training beforehand, and on the same bike I intend to ride. And I'll have Chris for company.
I'm still intimidated, but also increasingly excited, while I work on changing my family's unconscious motto: if I fail at something but I want to do it anyway, then I should definitely keep doing it.
