Posted on: March 4, 2009

On the Road Again

A neglected skill can snowball into an embarrassing conversation piece before you know it. Here's how one writer cut her losses, swallowed her pride and perfected helmet hair in the process

By Mary Margaret Murphey
CTW Features

Being four-and-a-half years old certainly had its perks.

My daily to-do list included eating candy whenever possible, wearing an unnecessary amount of costume jewelry, fantasizing about owning dolphins, raccoons or, at the very least, a litter or two of kittens and puppies, and convincing my parents to give my older brothers away to son-less families.

But the blissful ignorance and innocence that comes with early childhood (a recession is just a really long school recess, right?) was tempered by my desire to grow up and see the world beyond my backyard - all on my own. No adults allowed.

There was a lot of road out there that my little legs hadn't traveled yet, and probably didn't know even existed, but my fifth birthday changed all that.

My parents gave me my first bicycle! The handle bars and the body of my bike ran the gamut from hot to pale pink, the white seat and fenders were covered with pink swans and the woven basket in front was the perfect size for my current No. 1 doll, Rainbow Brite.

My dedication soon paid off - the training wheels found a new home in the garage and I was free to explore St. Louis to my heart's content.

And it turned out that I wasn't as interested in escaping everyone as I thought I would be (though I'm pretty sure my brothers did try to lose me couple times).

The Honeymoon is Over

That summer's bike-riding activities repeated themselves for several summers to follow, until I became more interested in spending my time shopping at the mall and giggling at slumber parties. Even though my bike became cellmates with the earlier-discarded training wheels, I can only hope that those beautiful swans were unaware of my neglect.

Fast-forward 12 years and I'm in Chicago for a weekend, visiting my oldest brother, Patrick, who attended Loyola University. We decided to take a leisurely bike ride along the lakefront path, and that was the harsh moment I discovered firsthand that not all clichÃ©s are true.

I literally could not ride the bike. I couldn't even remember how to balance, pedal or move with any amount of skill or grace, and believe me, I tried.

I tried for the better part of a hot summer afternoon, desperately, albeit unsuccessfully, attempting to play the part of the cool sister in town for the weekend ... but that's pretty difficult to pull off when pint-size Lance Armstrongs are lapping you with ease.

In bicycle years, I was four-and-a-half again, except I would look much more ridiculous with training wheels this time around.

I managed to skate through the next 11 years without having to come face-to-face with a bike, and when my forgotten talent would come up in conversation with new company, I would gloss over it as quickly as possible. It's a story that always gets a good-natured chuckle, but it's also one that carries with it a certain level of ridiculousness that I'd rather leave in the past.

It may have taken me more than a decade but I finally realized that the best way to put my cycling foibles behind me was to hop on a bike and leave them in the dust myself.

The Eye of the Tiger

Isn't there a saying about the necessity of understanding your enemy before you're able to fully defeat him? Now that's a clichÃ© that has lived up to my expectations a lot better than the aforementioned disappointment of "it's like riding a bike."

First things first, I needed to talk to people who enjoyed riding their bikes to find out what makes them tick. I turned to my friends Elizabeth and Kevin Sobczyk, who have been married for four years and have biked throughout the Midwest, the West Coast and even did "The Sound of Music" Bike Tour in Salzburg, Austria. (That is now one of my personal goals!)

"Biking can teach you the value of hard work, as you travel a long distance in a short period of time under your own power," Kevin says. And, Elizabeth adds, "You can go places cars can't."

"It puts you in the unique position of being able to see life at a slightly quicker pace," Kevin says. "But it demands your physical effort and constant attention to the world around you, both for the purposes of moving forward and also to enjoy the experience of controlling your journey at whatever pace and direction you choose."

I like the sound of that, and better yet, I'm beginning to realize that appreciating a bike at 28 years old doesn't require any extra wisdom than I had on my fifth birthday - just a more extensive vocabulary! And I need to be willing to put myself out there, wobble, maybe fall a time or two, hear a couple snickers and get back up.

Mark Sanders, a British designer and engineer who kick-started his career with an apprenticeship with Rolls-Royce in 1977, burst into the bicycling community in 1984 with a creative, convenient and functional foldable bike, the STRiDA. Though the concept initially seemed intimidating to me as a novice bicyclist, I have really warmed up to it, and I identify with Sanders' approach to biking. I also really like the idea of being able to fold up my bike and tuck it away somewhere. I could even build a cute nook for it! (I have an incurable weakness for nooks of any kind.)

"Relax, enjoy the surroundings. You don't have to race to enjoy a bicycle - and that way you don't sweat much either," Sanders says. "Get in touch with the 'child within' and cycle for fun. That, I am sure, was an underlying reason why mountain bikes became popular: They are an excuse to be a kid again!

"Like life, it's the journey that is as much fun as the destination," Sanders says.

The Point of No Return

So I took the plunge at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 10, 2008 - I borrowed a friend's blue Diamondback and started my new life wearing a helmet. With my boyfriend walking by my side, I teetered and tottered through side streets for what seemed like five miles, but was actually less than one.

I only veered into his path twice, ran into a fence once, stopped countless times when people got close to me on the sidewalk and I walked it through intersections. I left much less damage and trauma in my wake than I had originally feared.

I took the bike out for several more spins before the Chicago winter set in and halted my progress, and I have to admit that I loved it. A lot. I never thought I'd be one to say it, but I can't wait for spring to get here so I can buy my second bicycle and catch up on lost time.

I won't be entering any triathlons or biking along any major streets, at least this year, but I'll be out enjoying the neighborhood, itching to explore. And conquering that lakefront path!