Paksworld

Last Friday, I picked up my gift mountain bike from the bike shop where it had undergone repairs and a severe shortening of the seat post (because my legs are a lot shorter than the legs of the previous owner) and began learning how to ride it.   Since the last time I was on a bike at all was roughly twenty years ago–and only for a few months before that bike needed repairs I couldn’t afford–and before that another 25 year gap to the bike I had in college (much like the bike I’d had as a kid and teenager) there was already a learning curve.    Even if it had been the same kind of bike, there’d have been some wobbly moments early on.  But it wasn’t.

My early bikes were all single-speed, balloon-tired, coaster-brake bikes, and all had “female” frames,  so you could step through rather than throw your leg over the top.   I very much enjoyed riding them, and though I fell in the early days and skinned knees and elbows, that didn’t inhibit the fun.   I came to the bikes young, flexible, and fit–had walked a lot, ran every day (girls weren’t supposed to run as much as I did, but I did.)  I had good balance.  The various injuries (including concussions and broken bones) that have had their effect on today’s body hadn’t happened yet.

My new bike is a mountain bike.   It has an insane number of gears, hand brakes, and suspension front and rear.  When I got it back from the bike shop, it was on what a friend calls “granny gear” which meant having to pedal fast (but not hard) to get moving.    After my first attempt to ride it (which resulted in falling over while standing still)  I turned it upside down, hand pedaled it so I could change the gears and got it into something remotely resembling the gear the old one-speeds had.   I was able to ride a short distance, but stopping was a problem because I couldn’t unclench my hands from the handlebars to reach for the handbrakes.    And the combination of anxiety and pitiful physical condition (had no idea it was THAT bad) meant rapidly running out of air.

But every day I got on it and rode a little farther than the day before.   The north horse lot (eaten almost bare and with only a few obstacles)  was my training field.  First in straight lines.  Then in a gentle curve to the right.   Then a giant circle to the right.  Then an attempt to turn left.    Then  giant U to the left–a U because I went on out of the horse lot and into the yarn, the gate being open.    And that time…I fell again trying to stop, this time much harder, with the water bottle carrier putting a really spectacular bruise on my leg.    The kind of bruise you need to get ice on or you’ll seriously regret it.    I clambered up, with difficulty, hobbled back to the house wheeling the bike, and looked at the damage.

Yup.   Needed ice, elevation, compression…and I quickly discovered that sitting at the computer was not going to work.   So I arranged an ice bag, wrap,  propped pillows and things, and lay down knitting instead.   It didn’t let me sleep Wednesday night, so Thursday (since it was still expanding and I was dead tired)  I didn’t try to ride, but almost finished the current pair of socks and got small bits of writing done.   This morning, I got back on the bike, ignoring the other bruises that had shown up in the meantime (where I landed on the ground, for instance)  and went to work learning how to use the hand brakes, in very short stretches.   Start, pedal a few, stop.  Repeat.   Things are sore.  The main bruise still hurts when I walk.

Falling at 67 is not like falling at 8, 15, 25, or even 35.   The principles of falling–how not to break a wrist or a neck–are the same off a bike or a horse or anything else but the resilience of the body changes with age.   On the other hand, every time I come out of a fall without serious injury there’s a kind of exultation, too:  HA, cheated gravity again.  Not as fragile as I may have feared.

Meanwhile, being away from the computer for most of the last two days (and a few hours this morning) let me finish the DenimOne socks, the ones that have proved to me I’m not an expert yet.  After the success of RedTwo, I though I had it all figured out.  Nope.

What this has to do with Paksworld stories is that while knitting, I was also thinking.   Several things became clear.   Now all I have to do is write them.    Going *splat* and having to take some time away to think can be good for a project.  Not that I want to do it again…I have a book to write.