At first, I was really nervous about biking. In the last 15 years, I have only biked on very opened streets or on stationary bikes (not helpful to train to bike on these streets). So when purchasing a bike, the salesperson highly recommended me to buy a better bike than Alvin's. After purchasing the bikes, I immediately understood why my bike suited me better. It rides at a slower pace (which has nothing to do with my pedaling), and the brake response time is super fast. That means I can see that I'm crashing into something 5 seconds before I crash, and then I can brake up to the last second, and avoid the crash. I have had many close calls, but no crashes, yet. Actually, today, I by accident ran into the back of Alvin's bike wheel.
Over the last three weeks, I have started to become more comfortable with the bike. I realize that instead of cars avoiding bikes, over where I live now, bikes avoid cars. I really do feel like Frogger.
The nemesis to my biking is the west gate out of my apartment complex. The gate is quite small, and I have difficulty getting out without putting my leg down or once, putting my hand on the wall to brace myself from crashing. The forth time I went through it, I succeeded. So I thought, I am getting better at biking. But then, I had difficulty for the next twenty times. Every time I had to put my leg down, Alvin would say to me "没有成功 (mei you cheng gong）,“ or in English, "fail." I started to feel like a failure at biking. Yet, the last three days, I have succeeded 4/5 times. Yes, I go at a snail's pace when going through, and my foot has come off the pedal, but I didn't put my foot down.
Here is a picture of the gate. Looking at the white wall, I know I am not the only one that has not "cheng gonged."
2 comments:
I've told you about my first time doing something with Eric, right? We went mountain biking (in the days when I'd just started biking)...and I ended up falling down a ravine, hitting a pipe, and getting poison oak. I still have a scar under my lip. And I was on a very wide path, but still found the edge b/c I didn't realize the trick is *not* to look at where you don't want to go. So I think you're doing quite well if you're making it through that gate some of the time. If you were to compare my example, I would have tried for the gate, and hit the center of it. So Alvin, "shush ;)"
I can't wait to try biking, your bike, sometime soon. Do you have a bell on your bike? J/J proudly point out to us their bells on the little bikes. Oh, that little Jacob now peddles his two wheelers very good and fast. :)
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