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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even if it had been the same kind of bike, there’d have been some wobbly moments early on.\u00a0 But it wasn’t.<\/p>\n
My early bikes were all single-speed, balloon-tired, coaster-brake bikes, and all had “female” frames,\u00a0 so you could step through rather than throw your leg over the top.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.)\u00a0 I had good balance.\u00a0 The various injuries (including concussions and broken bones) that have had their effect on today’s body hadn’t happened yet.<\/p>\n
My new bike is a mountain bike.\u00a0\u00a0 It has an insane number of gears, hand brakes, and suspension front and rear.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After my first attempt to ride it (which resulted in falling over while standing still)\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And the combination of anxiety and pitiful physical condition (had no idea it was THAT bad) meant rapidly running out of air.<\/p>\n
But every day I got on it and rode a little farther than the day before.\u00a0\u00a0 The north horse lot (eaten almost bare and with only a few obstacles)\u00a0 was my training field.\u00a0 First in straight lines.\u00a0 Then in a gentle curve to the right.\u00a0\u00a0 Then a giant circle to the right.\u00a0 Then an attempt to turn left.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then\u00a0 giant U to the left–a U because I went on out of the horse lot and into the yarn, the gate being open.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The kind of bruise you need to get ice on or you’ll seriously regret it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I clambered up, with difficulty, hobbled back to the house wheeling the bike, and looked at the damage.<\/p>\n
Yup.\u00a0\u00a0 Needed ice, elevation, compression…and I quickly discovered that sitting at the computer was not going to work.\u00a0\u00a0 So I arranged an ice bag, wrap,\u00a0 propped pillows and things, and lay down knitting instead.\u00a0\u00a0 It didn’t let me sleep Wednesday night, so Thursday (since it was still expanding and I was dead tired)\u00a0 I didn’t try to ride, but almost<\/em> finished the current pair of socks and got small bits of writing done.\u00a0\u00a0 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)\u00a0 and went to work learning how to use the hand brakes, in very short stretches.\u00a0\u00a0 Start, pedal a few, stop.\u00a0 Repeat.\u00a0\u00a0 Things are sore.\u00a0 The main bruise still hurts when I walk.<\/p>\n Falling at 67 is not like falling at 8, 15, 25, or even 35.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 On the other hand, every time I come out of a fall without serious injury there’s a kind of exultation, too:\u00a0 HA, cheated gravity again.\u00a0 Not as fragile as I may have feared.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 After the success of RedTwo, I though I had it all figured out.\u00a0 Nope.<\/p>\n What this has to do with Paksworld stories is that while knitting, I was also thinking.\u00a0\u00a0 Several things became clear.\u00a0\u00a0 Now all I have to do is write them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Going *splat* and having to take some time away to think can be good for a project.\u00a0 Not that I want to do it again…I have a book to write.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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.\u00a0\u00a0 Since the last time I was on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1655,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions\/1655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}