Monday, December 25, 2006

today is the first day...

... of the rest of your life.

but that's incidental. i'm here to talk about my bike, and me riding it specifically. last summer i was flipping through the channels and saw this documentary on AIDSlifecycle and it got me all excited. since i have shifted from being an angry hater to being nostalgically angst-y and faux-negative, i've been trying things i'd never have done in the past, just to see if i can.

riding a bike is something i hadn't done since elementary school, and i'd always been a little ashamed of the fact that i couldn't really ride one anymore. people would ask me to go places with them on bikes, and i'd pull out my standard "um, but i don't have a bike". this would inevitably be followed by a generous offer to loan me one or help me borrow one from someone, and then i'd just have to be like, "umm... no... that's cool.. i don't really want to.." lame.

soooo.... i see this thing on tv and i'm like "cool. i want to do that. it's a good cause and it looks like fun... and it also looks like the kind of thing that would terrify me. meeting tons of new people, sleeping in tents, physical exertion, wearing unflattering and dorky clothing, no chance of escape... i'll sign up!"

so i bought a bike at the awesome hollywood pro bicycles. my bike-y friend steven picked it out for me. hollywood pro is a totally unexpected place. it's teeny tiny and crammed with rad stuff right on hollywood blvd. near highland on the walk of fame. the guys who work there were so nice and helpful. i think i even convinced them to go on the ride in june! also, they were very patient with my extreme ignorance of all things bike-related. so go buy some bike stuff from them.

the first time i tried to ride the bike i got about halfway down my block and was wobbling all over the place back and forth and i almost fell. it looked so bad that another bicyclist riding by actually stopped to see if i was o.k., thinking something was wrong with the bike. i was like "i'm fine! it's cool!". after that, i put the bike in the back of my car and took it to the parking lot of an abandoned k-mart by my house. it was perfect. no cars and lots of wide open space. i practiced shifting my gears and seeing how close i could ride to the concrete pilings holding up the lamp posts. yes, that's right, like a five-year-old.

i did that a few more times, even trying out other parking lots in the area, until it was time to ride the bike on real streets with real cars.

No comments: