by Mark Zeiger

Created on: March 08, 2009

I learned to ride a bicycle the hard way: no training wheels. Nor was it miniaturized, as some children's bikes are these days. My first bike matched my height proportionately; it was the same size to my child's body as a standard bicycle is to an adult's body.

Learning to ride was quite the adventure. I remember my urgency to acquire this new skill so that I could join my older brother on his shaky rides around the neighborhood. I worked hard to gain enough of my own balance to ride free of my parents' steadying hands. I spent hours practicing on the long asphalt strip fronting the elementary school across the street from our house. If Mom or Dad couldn't be there, I would straddle the bike and walk it around on tiptoe, learning the feel of the shifting machine, teaching my body to react to each change.

The day eventually came when I could ride well enough to participate in an extended tour. My father took my brother and me "around the block." In our rural, apple country town, a block meant the road around a neighboring orchard, perhaps more than a mile from start to finish. It was a momentous occasion!

Surely, it was a great ride. I have always loved to ride bikes, and this first landmark journey had to be thrilling. Summer in that region was hot and dry. The air would have been fragrant with sun baked apple wood, thistle, milkweed, with perhaps a hint of wood smoke. Grasshoppers would have thrummed and droned in the afternoon heat, and the birds in the orchards would have been in full chorus. Even the dust that would rise in choking billows on those gravel back roads would have been welcome, a familiar, comforting taste of the world I knew so well. It should have been an experience to savor to this day.

Whatever it was actually like, I don't recall, because the ride did not end well.

The last leg of the block, a section of road that led back to our house, was on a hill. Its slope wasn't particularly steep, just enough to present a challenge to the beginning rider. Before descending, we paused while Dad reviewed the use of our coaster brakes. When he satisfied himself that we remembered and understood how to position our pedals properly to be ready to slow or stop our bikes as necessary, we pushed off and started for home.

The intersection at the front corner of the property had a four way stop. We intended to turn right before reaching it, to take a long gravel driveway across the back of the property to the house.

The descent was exhilarating. I reveled in coasting

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