So It Turns Out You Can Totally Forget How to Ride a Bike

        You know that old saying “it’s like riding a bicycle”, meaning that once you know how to ride a bike you never forget? Yeah, that’s totally not true. About 6 years ago, I used to go for 2-3 hour bike rides every day during the spring and summer. And I don’t mean leisurely, Sunday afternoon –type bike rides. My boyfriend at the time and I would deliberately seek out the toughest, steepest hills and the most twisted and hilliest forest paths. We would race up the hills and I was the victor most of the time, the Queen of the Mountain stages. He even bought me a polka dot jersey to wear (FYI: the winner of the mountain stages in the Tour de France wear a polka dot jersey), I was that strong and fast. I owned the roads (and the paths and the forests…)

            I’ve been spinning inside all this long, cold, dark winter. I’ve been doing  some ridiculously tough rides so I thought an outdoor ride would be no sweat.  How wrong I was. (Never one to miss an opportunity to post a picture of minions, here’s a GIF of them laughing at my naivete.)

            Last weekend was the long Victoria Day weekend here in Canada so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get out for an outside ride. I hadn’t done an outside ride in at least 5 years but I assumed it would be like, well, riding a bike (where else would that expression come from? ?),  and my body would just automatically remember what to do once it was back in the saddle.  Yeah…not so much.

           

           I called a friend and he brought over his bike. His brand-new, high-end, state of the art bike. It put my seven-year-old bike to shame. We put on our helmets, he put his foot on a pedal, pushed off and was headed down the driveway. I put my foot on a pedal, pushed off….and promptly fell to the ground. When did my bike’s wheels get so thin? When did it become so shaky and unstable? I got back up, put my foot on a pedal, pushed off…and fell to the ground again. Taking pity on me (and talking to himself, as he assumed I was right behind him), my friend turned around and came back to me. I made excuses: the seat must be too high, I don’t have the strength in my dead leg to push off properly, etc. (Although now that I think about it, there might be some truth to the latter.)  So we took my bike to my backyard and we practiced on the deck, where nobody would see me. I felt like a complete dork. A complete noob. The girl who prided herself on being able to do a two hour Sufferfest ride couldn’t even ride a real bike. Don't tell the Ministry of Sufferlandria (or their minions). 

            After about ten minutes of practicing on the deck, I felt confident enough to go back out front and try it in public. After a shaky start, I was able to get down the street to the park we were going to ride in. I slowly started to feel more stable and soon it felt like I had never stopped riding regularly.  It was like riding a bike—all my muscle memories came back and I was almost Queen of the Mountains again. I’m going to blame my old bike, as my was friend literally spinning circles around me with his totally awesome bike.

            So now I need a new bike. But that’s a topic for another day.

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           Today I also wanted to share a new recipe I’ve just discovered. It’s literally the best meal I’ve ever had, and that includes in restaurants. It costs less than $10 to make and takes less than 10 minutes to make. I’ve made it four times in the past week—I love it that much. All the ingredients are PC Black Label and it’s super easy to make. The recipe is here. (If you know me “in real life” then you know that goat’s cheese is my favourite food ever. So I tried the recipe using goat’s cheese instead of parmigiano reggiano. The goat’s cheese was good but I actually prefer the recipe with the parmigiano reggiano.)

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          Finally, a huge thank you to everyone. This blog has gotten more hits/reads than I could have ever predicted. I really just keep this blog for me, to keep track of my progress and because I love writing and miss all the writing I used to do. For some reason the comments don’t work but I really appreciate all the encouraging emails and texts you’ve sent cheering me on :)