Today I shall teach my wife to ride a bike. Yes, I do mean exactly that. I will teach my wife to ride a bike. “What?” I hear you say, “Didn’t she learn when she was a child? Is she still a child?” Well, yes and no. That is, yes, she did learn when she was a child and, no, she’s definitely not a child now. Which just goes to disprove the old adage that ‘it’s just like riding a bike – you never forget how’. In the event it was more like that other old saying about being ‘as easy as falling off a bike’. Which is precisely what she did.
For some time she has been threatening to buy a bike. This will be because she can accompany me on one of my rides and thereby doubling the danger to other road users in one fell swoop. Or because she feels she needs the exercise in a life that involves too much motoring or perhaps because the price of a litre of petrol is now horrendous. Maybe it is down to all three.
The other day we were in town doing nobody any harm when, with a purposeful stride and a grab of my arm, she made off in a westerly direction announcing that she wanted to go and look at some bikes. And so it was that within a minute we found ourselves in a local cycle emporium surrounded by all sorts of wheeled contraptions. There were roughy-toughy looking bikes with big knobbly tyres and suspension for going up mountains, apparently. There were different ones for coming down again. Who only ever does a one-way trip on a mountain? How does the coming-down bike get up there to be ready and waiting for the going-up one? There were bikes with better disc brakes than I’ve seen on a Kawasaki. Sleek, light-weight bikes for road racing that you could pick up with one finger. I have to say, it was all very technical and impressive apart, that is, from the moment that she said she needed a basket on her bike. That, in my mind at least, was when the coolness went out of it. There ensued an in-depth conversation over the technical and aesthetic merits of wicker versus metal combined with quick release mechanisms for the shopping basket in the event of the need for emergency retail therapy.
In the end, being unable to choose between mountain or hybrid and having discussed the finer points of luggage, she plumped for a Pink Floyd bike. In the words of the song it had ‘a basket, a bell that rings and things to make it look good’. It was also pink and rugged – with a basket.
“When do you want it?”, said the man from the shop.
“When can you make it ready?”, she said.
A look, both agonised and unsure, passed momentarily over his face whereupon he offered the vague prospect of it being ready on the following day. The nodded reassurance of his colleague sealed the deal. And so it was that the wife took the first tentative steps to Lycra-loutism.
I didn’t accompany her when she went to collect it on the agreed day as it was only a mile or so walk to the shop and the same for the return. This was to be her first bike ride for more than twenty years but, I mean, what could go wrong? Sometimes it is best not to know things even if you do have a fairly robust constitution and so I have no knowledge of just what trail of destruction was left in her wake. A policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ seemed to be most appropriate but she did admit to having misjudged the turning up into the alley at the back of our estate and falling off. Crash! No damage fortunately apart from a grazed knee and a wounded pride.
I have offered to fit stabilisers. I also made it clear that I was willing to run alongside her and hold on to the saddle to steady her. In the end both were declined and she made a halting and nervous start in attempting to pedal away from rest. For the next 5½ miles following me on mostly flat ground she held it together quite well – as long as there were no sharp bends. Anything tighter than the gentlest of curves has seen some pretty wild under-steering and rapid braking.
Oh dear. Tomorrow I will… teach my wife to ride a bike round corners.