Not only was I the weird kid in my school, I was also chronically uncoordinated, falling over my own feet with alarming frequency. This meant I was usually the kid that no one wanted on their team in sports and that I regularly came last in every event at the athletics carnival.
I remember my father helping me learn to ride a bike and throwing his hands up in the air before declaring that I was THE single most awkward child he’d ever watched try to ride a bike. I was secretly quite proud of that, because at least it LOOKED as difficult as it felt.
Speaking of bike riding, I didn’t actually learn to ride a bike until I was nearly eight years old – long long after all of my peers were zipping around their suburbs in groups. It didn’t help that I lived on a steep hill, with gravel roads and a gravelly stone filled driveway. It just wasn’t safe, and frankly, I was happier inside with a book anyway.
That was, until I went away on a community trip with my grandmother.
I frequently spent most of my weekends with Nan already, so when a community holiday was organised, obviously she was going to take me along. You can see why I miss her so much now, when I spent all of my spare time in her company growing up.
Nan knew that all of the kids were taking bikes along with them and hey, wasn’t it lucky that she’d bought me a bright pink bike just that Christmas? A bike that I had completely failed to master I should say.
Nonetheless, the bike was packed up, along with everyone else, before a whole group of us headed off for a week away.
I was the only child older than four that couldn’t already ride a bike. I think I ought to point that out.
But, if nothing else I was a determined kid and I was determined that they wouldn’t get to make fun of me this time.
There were big long grassy hills at the holiday destination and I could just picture myself sailing down them with ease. Until I actually tried it, and promptly fell off. Again and again I tried, wobbling my way down the hill and crashing more times than not.
One of the fathers finally took pity on me and considering his just-turned-five-year-old had finally mastered riding without training wheels, he attached her training wheels to my bike.
Can you see my dignity dying?
Two days and plenty of skinned ankles later (training wheels are vicious) and I was able to remove the training wheels and declare that I’d mastered my bike. I quickly progressed to riding everywhere with the other kids, pointedly ignoring the fact that they’d all seen me falling off again and again in the first few days.
I even managed not to fall off too many more times – but I wouldn’t recommend that a beginner bike rider tries to ride over a cattle grid. That one was nasty AND I broke the bell on my bike. Devastated.
We even managed to get Nan on a bike – although I suspect she was just showing off here and trying to make me believe that it was “easy”.
When did you learn to ride a bike? Are you as terribly unco as I am?
