Live. Laugh. Bike.

I tightened my little four-year-old hands around the handlebars and stared down the grassy hill before me, the training wheels left in the garage. This was it. This was going to be the try where I emerged triumphant. I couldn’t get it together on the tennis court, couldn’t get it on the driveway. My fear must have been of absolutely skinning the crap out of my knees, so here I was, by my dad’s suggestion, in the grass. Pedaling through grass is like trying to run in the pool: extremely hard and pointless but also a zero percent chance of serious injury. The plan was to coast my little pink two-wheeler, a hand me down, down this soft, safe hill in our side yard, and then use that momentum to push through my first pedals. I took a deep breath, made sure my Tweety Bird helmet was secure and pushed off. I barreled down the hill, maintaining balance, maintaining, maintaining, the hill flattened, and it was time to pedal. One, two, three, I was pedaling! Pedaling and pedaling until the whole pedaling-through-grass thing came into play and I toppled over into the ever so soft zoysia grass. I had done it!

I immediately ran my little self inside and convinced my parents, my sister, my grandparents, my neighbors, my cats, anyone available on Craig Drive, to come see what I could do. I performed again and within the hour transitioned back up to hard surfaces.  Learning to ride my bike opened so many doors. Sure, at first, my only outings consisted of loops around the block and family outings to Sonic. But over time, I began to prove myself as a responsible bikes-woman, and with that, came the freedom. Suddenly, “Mom, I am going to go ride my bike!” was enough justification for where I was headed.

Once freedom was reached, I would cruise through my neighborhood, getting, at times, hopelessly lost in the suburban maze of Overland Park, Kansas. I would zoom past Emily Katz’s house just to check in and awkwardly say hello.  From the moment I took those grassy pedal pumps, through the remainder of elementary school, biking was incredibly cool. Rolling up to soccer practice without a parent drop off, perfecting the no-handed coast while riding home from the pool, towel draped around my little neck. My transportation was largely unsupervised and that was oh so cool.

In middle school, the incline in bra use correlated greatly with the decline in bike coolness. Cruising up to Samantha Robert’s house for a boy, girl pool party on my Trek Guardian 10-speed was so obviously not the move. I watched kids pile out of minivans, carpooling suddenly making a comeback. Other kids, strolled slowly to the house, practicing the newest fad of loitering, as I stood frozen, in my Haley from Stick It inspired skater helmet. This disregard for biking only got worse as I entered high school. My classmates and I transitioned into captaining inherited sedans and hatchbacks, so we could drive three minutes to school and friends’ houses - once a very bikeable distance. When it was time to ship off to college, my bike remained in the garage to collect dust next to my rollerblades, razor scooter, and the like.

 This inconsistent affinity for biking and bikes themselves has never sat particularly well with me. Yeah, okay, driving opens the door to blasting the radio with your friends and covering longer distances without arriving sweaty to your final destination. Do you occasionally lock your bike up and return to the rack to see it has disappeared? Sure! Do you sometimes bike to a destination, it starts to rain, and you are forced to bike home? Of course! There are risks! There are risks because there are rewards. You would never on purpose bike through the rain but are forced to shift into a youthful mindset and sing Hilary Duff’s “Come Clean,” as you flick a line of mud up your back. Biking is an instant portal to childlike joy, a personification of wholesomeness. It is a reminder of skinned knees and Summer. It is a universal touchpoint. Throughout the rises and falls in popularity, the bikes remain steady, always providing this escape while they passionately wait for their popularity to return.

As an adult, I call Brooklyn, New York my home. And if there is one thing you must know about Brooklyn, it is that bicycles run this borough. They are forever in vogue! Bike lanes stretch along all streets, bike shops leave pumps on the sidewalk for community use. Middle-aged women coast along parks with their baskets full of produce. Suited commuters zoom over bridges to get to the office. Hipsters walk their retro cycles along the sidewalk – I could fully assume they don’t know how to actually ride. It is neighborhood euphoria for a lifelong bike lover. I am finally validated in my never-wavering, staunch opinion that bikes have been and will always be cool.

I have a red Panasonic, ten-speed whom I refer to as Brandi. She and I have covered this whole city from tip to toe. Each time I pull out onto the road and take those first one, two, three pedal pumps, I am reminded of how extremely fun it is to ride a bike with two wheels.