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How I learned to ride a bike in my 20s
May. 5th, 2011 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
untonugganI thought I'd break the ice by sharing my first biking experiences. I should mention that I (1) have fibromyalgia, and (2) didn't learn to ride until I was in my 20s. If I can do it, I'm sure a lot of other folks can, too! Also, I only fell once, and I only got a couple of bruises from it.
I never learned as a kid. I had a bicycle for awhile, a pink and white Hello Kitty one with a horn and a sweet basket. I rode it around with training wheels for awhile. I pestered my dad to teach me how to ride, but he kept saying that there weren't good places for me to learn how to ride that were safe...or that he didn't want me to ride on the streets....this compounded my own fear of falling off the bike, so eventually I stopped pestering him and the training wheels rusted onto the bike and then I outgrew the bike.
I carried a lot of shame for quite awhile about not being able to do this thing that apparently everyone else knew how to do.( Read more... )
The crowning glory was when I went on my first bike ride this weekend. In Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC they block off the main roadway to motor vehicles on the weekends. It's a really pretty ride, even if the hordes of bikers on road bikes can be a little intimidating. It was amazing. Perhaps I am overusing that word, I don't know. I just loved the feel of the wind in my face, the lactic acid burn in my muscles, and the bird song echoing through the green canopy of the woods.
(cross-posted to my personal journal)
I never learned as a kid. I had a bicycle for awhile, a pink and white Hello Kitty one with a horn and a sweet basket. I rode it around with training wheels for awhile. I pestered my dad to teach me how to ride, but he kept saying that there weren't good places for me to learn how to ride that were safe...or that he didn't want me to ride on the streets....this compounded my own fear of falling off the bike, so eventually I stopped pestering him and the training wheels rusted onto the bike and then I outgrew the bike.
I carried a lot of shame for quite awhile about not being able to do this thing that apparently everyone else knew how to do.( Read more... )
The crowning glory was when I went on my first bike ride this weekend. In Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC they block off the main roadway to motor vehicles on the weekends. It's a really pretty ride, even if the hordes of bikers on road bikes can be a little intimidating. It was amazing. Perhaps I am overusing that word, I don't know. I just loved the feel of the wind in my face, the lactic acid burn in my muscles, and the bird song echoing through the green canopy of the woods.
(cross-posted to my personal journal)
