Saturday, in the Park

Actually, it was a schoolyard, but that's the best reference I could think of. (The subsequent lyrics, "I think it was the Fourth of July," are even less fitting.)

My bicycle lesson went extremely well. I give full credit to the woman I will call "G" -- until we find a better, truly appropriate nickname. She believed more strongly in me than I did, and I ended up proving her right. (Even worse, I'm starting to run out of times when "I can't" is a decent excuse.)

G's principle, if I haven't mentioned it before (and even if I have, I'm saying it again, so tough noogies), is that some children (and me) have difficulty learning how to ride a bicycle because they have to pedal and steer and balance all at the same time. She says, if you isolate each task, it's easier to learn them all then combine them later. (If you trust Wikipedia, this citation echoes her reasoning.) In my case, it appears to have worked.

After a few times coasting down the hill, I was able to keep my balance without tipping. Maybe I don't have a balance problem, after all. Maybe, the first time I tried learning how to ride a bicycle, I was just too young. (That doesn't mean you're going to get me on a skateboard, though.) It was a fairly gentle hill, plus the unmowed Bermudagrass (up to my knees in some parts) helped keep me from going too fast. I managed to stay just a little bit on this side of panic.

My cotton T-shirt clung to me, but I don't know if it was from humidity or from me sweating because I was so nervous.

G's young daughter showed up about that time, on her own bicycle. She already knows how to ride a bike, but she enjoyed rolling down the hill, just because she could make noises on each bump. I was keeping my mouth shut, so I wouldn't make noises.

Oddly enough, I think I was breathing more heavily as gravity took me down the hill, rather than each time I had to push the bike back up the hill to do it again. I certainly appreciated the lightweight bike that G has. I just might buy one of the aluminum, bike store models, rather than a steel, "Wal-Mart Special" -- especially if I'm going to end up carrying it up and down 14 steps to my second-floor condo every time I use it.

The next step was to steer. That's something I need to practice more. My brain still hasn't fully processed how and when pushing left means going left and how and when pushing left means going right. I had a couple of near misses with one particular basketball goalpost.

Putting my feet on the pedals sounded simple enough, but looking down to find the pedals while looking ahead to avoid the tree and the soccer goal and those other metal posts proved a bit difficult.

At the bottom of the hill, I was able to pedal and turn in large circles for a while. (Turning counterclockwise was easy, so the next few times, I went clockwise.) However, the tall grass made it very difficult (not to mention the toeclips dragging beneath the pedals). I was pushing hard with my legs for little movement, so I think I've learned why gears are useful, even if I won't be learning how for a bit.

At that point, the school district's mowing crew showed up (you'd think they could have mowed the grass all summer, but I guess leaving piles of clippings from 18" tall turf the weekend before school opens isn't a bad thing to them), so G and I moved down to the basketball court at the bottom of the hill, for me to practice steering, pedaling, and starting without the benefit of gravity. It was also my first lesson in not running into other people, as G's daughter had been there for a while, doing her own laps. Let's use a broad definition and say that I rode in "circles", and then "figure-8's", for the better part of an hour.

Best of all, I felt no fear. I should go out and buy myself one of those "No Fear" T-shirts. (And maybe even a "Big Dog" T-shirt, too.)