by M. F. Carbo

Created on: March 12, 2009

I was a bit old to finally learn how to ride a two wheeled bicycle. Before this time I mainly rode my Big Wheel which I dearly loved but now all my friends, even the younger ones, had mastered riding a bicycle and I was too big for my Big Wheel anymore. I was eight years old and still had training wheels on my bike and was the butt of jokes by my friends in the neighborhood. There was a section of sidewalk that was missing near my home it was where a tree had once stood and while the other kids could ride right through it my training wheels would get stuck every time. I couldn't let another summer pass without learning how to ride a bicycle! I never had my own bicycle I had to use my older brother's bicycle that was a ugly shade of blue with a long banana seat. It didn't have the rubber grips on the handle bars but just the straight metal tubes. I remember this because while learning how to ride a bike alone the bike fell and I landed right on top of one of the bare handle bars. I remember to this day the pain of it pushing into my stomach. I ended up getting some silver glittery rubber grips for my handlebars to make sure that wouldn't happen again! My mother would come outside and give me some moral support once in a while and even jumped on the bike and cruised around for a bit. She tried the best she could to help me but eventually I was out there learning on my own. I guess I wore my poor mother out but I kept on trying. I scraped knees, elbows and even scraped my stomach after hitting a parked car but I didnt quit. There were no helmets, or elbow pads and knee pads just me and my brother's bicycle. That old blue bike was ugly and slow, never mind the fact that it was a boy's bike but I eventually did learn how to ride that old bicycle. I didn't complain too much even though I would have loved to have my own bicycle that old bike would be my bicycle for a couple of years. I remember the freedom I felt riding my bike and how my friends and I would ride bikes every single day. I eventually moved up to my brother's newer bicycle, a bike he had put together part by part himself. It was a lot better than that old blue bike and my brother owns that "newer" bike still to this day nearly thirty years later. I tell my children all the time that riding a bicycle is so much fun but both my twelve year old and my seven year old have no interest in learning, that is a shame because they don't know what they're missing.

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