For the past few years, I have tried several times to really portray the true glory of bike riding to my youngest daughter. I attempted to explain how amazing it feels to glide along the concrete with the wind in your hair and a big stupid smile on your face. I have dazzled her with amazing stories of my brothers and myself living countless adventures only afforded to us because we mastered our fancy two wheeled yachts. Actually, our bikes were usually “Frankenstein” bikes that were skillfully pieced together by our then step-Dad. But, regardless, we would spend hours on them roaming the neighborhoods, jumping ramps, and creating our own trails.
I spent more than many hours in the past, grasping the back of my daughter’s bike seat and running for miles down the sidewalk while she screamed, “I can’t Daddy, I can’t.” Sometimes, I would let go and she would go a few feet, but the moment she noticed I was gone, she was terrified and her worse fear was realized… she fell. Sure, we did the helmet thing. And knee pads and elbow pads and whatever other kind of pad was available. But always, the threat of road-rash was foremost in her mind.
And then one day, we gave up.
Now, this story is ripe with metaphor that is all too easy to spot. Simply replace the bike riding with any other fearful task and cast God in the Daddy role and… well, you get the point.
But, that’s not all this story is about. Spring has recently rolled around the corner and I (once again) brought up the idea of trying the whole bike thing again. Her arguments against it were the same, but they had grown much more eloquent and persuasive through the years. In a list ditch attempt to do something, I “Googled” the problem. I simply put “learn to ride a bike” into the search box and the number of suggested links were endless. After sifting through many many many websites, I ended up on You Tube.
There was video showing kids in New York (bikenewyork.org) learning to ditch the training wheels with a simple solution: they take the pedals off. Yep… they took a wrench and removed the pedals. The idea is that if you take the pedals off and lower the seat so that your kid can have both feet flat on the street, they can then propel themselves around at will. They are in control and have no fear of falling since their feet can catch them at any time. When they want to, they pick up their feet and coast for a bit to feel the balance. Eventually, you put the pedals back on and they get it. Seemed to good to be true, but we thought we’d give it a shot.
Needless to say (after about an hour or so), when we saw our beautiful girl ride those first few feet alone, my wife and I were beside ourselves. We threw our hands up in victory. You would have thought she had just won a gold medal in the Olympics. I’m not too proud to say, I had blurry tear filled eyes. And my angel had the biggest grin that she unsuccessfully attempted to hide. She spent the next hour riding in short bursts up and down our street.
Later that evening, I took her up to the church parking lot to give her the chance to ride without stopping for the incredible amount of cars that suddenly felt the need to utilize our thoroughfare. She rode in circles, straight lines (of a sort), and figure eights. Once, when she rode close to me, I asked, “well… what do you think?” She shouted, “I feel so free!”
It’s been a while since my heart felt that happy. I will cling to this memory and replay it many times. What an amazing day.