I’ve started riding my bicycle again. I regularly run a bunch of miles per week and lately I have been thinking that I need to alternate running with bike riding to assuage some of the high impact miles running offers. I love running. It’s better than bike riding. It’s harder. It’s simpler. It’s just you and effort and very little gear if you don’t count the shoes and the clothing but naked barefoot running gets you arrested.
I’ve kayaked naked. Me and a group of six women in the Alaskan sound. Got free chocolates from the cruise ships when they passed by
…and applause.
ANYWAY. I serviced the bike that’s been stowed away for years and have started riding again. It’s not as satisfying as running. Yes, you can wear yourself out, but running is better.
In terms of benefit, you need 3 miles on a bike for every 1 run so riding also takes more time. Riding the bike reminds me of being a kid and riding to school and roaming the hills in Los Angeles and the miles and miles I rode around the city because I have always liked to wander.
Every time I ride these days a memory about how I felt when I was a kid flickers through my mind. All the old habits return, all the old conceits. I was a cautious rider and still I got hit, twice. Someone’s gardener knocked me off my bike because he ran a stop sign and another time a driver spinning too fast into a driveway from the street took me out. The damage was minor both times and my knee jerk reaction to being hurt anyway has always been to jump up and say, “I’m fine”. Both times I noticed that the drivers were horrified, and I didn’t understand why. As an adult I do of course but as a kid I didn’t even tell my parents. As a kid I didn’t want anyone to know I’d been hit or hurt. It was embarrassing, my fault. Oh hell, both times I felt it was my fault though it wasn’t.
I’ve been feeling less than this week so I’ve been hitting the bike. 40 miles in three days so far. Today I fell off my bike. I had turned my head to locate the sound of an ambulance siren and twisted the handlebars into the curb at the same time. BONK. Little scraps and tears and I bopped up like I did as a kid and pretended nothing stung like it actually did and I was embarrassed.
The thing is I feel like I deserve the fall and the scraps and the torn skin. It’s hiding inside me whatever is bothering me this week. Jesus I am tired of discovering something else I need to fix about me.
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