For someone who has viewed bicycles as Instruments of Satan ever since that day way back in my senior year of college when I came-to on the hood of car with the sound of my own body slamming into the hood reverberating in the inner recesses of my soul, I spend a lot of time on two wheels
Perhaps I am making up for lost time, as I did spend about 15 years trembling every time I laid eyes on a bicycle. But, as they say, when in Rome. And here in Our Fair City the quickest, cheapest most environmentally friendly way to get from Point A to Point 中国 is to ride your bike.
As of last spring, I would ride my bike to school twice a week to work in the library (about 10k), and to my friend Monica's house (about 12k) to play badminton (although we did discover toward the end of June when it got to be too hot for me to ride that I actually played a significantly better game when I took a taxi to her house instead of expending 45 minutes worth of energy riding there first - let's not even talk about the ride home), Ikea, Suguo, Metro, Fuzi Miao and, sometimes, just around for the sheer joy of it. There is a part of me that thinks that maybe I am so desperately missing riding horses that I have taken up the bicycle as a way to compensate for my loss. Whatever the reason, so far I have survived and it seems to work.
Here's what bike riding looks like around here
And that's not much, really. We live in a quiet part of town. The concrete truck? Be afraid. Really afraid. I have unfortunately seen what happens when a scooter tangles with one of these and I will have nightmares for the rest of my life. Half a year later, I still offer quiet prayers for the victim.
Here's what biking looked like when I was home this summer:
A little quieter. This is a hill near my parents house. I would borrow my dad's bike early in the morning and go for a quick power ride around the block. Interestingly enough, I found biking in the US far, far more terrifying than biking in Nanjing. I think it was because I would be biking along, humming a quiet tune all by my little self, when suddenly, some moron in an Audi would roar past me at 65MPH. Maybe that was it.
We spent about a month at my parent's place in Myrtle Beach. I couldn't quite imagine an entire month without biking, particularly given that Myrtle Beach is eerily similar to Nanjing (flat!!!), and thus a perfect place in my mind for biking. So I hit up Craig's List to see what I could find.
This little beauty was had for $25US. And worth maybe not quite as much as that. It took some getting used to, what with it being at least 25 years out of date and probably the exact model of bike I totaled back in my free wheeling college days. But a few days of riding around with a sore bum, I finally bought a wrench, hiked up the seat and handle bars and managed to ride a good 45 minutes a day, generally in the early morning when the children were still sleeping.
Random interjection: I found while biking this summer not one, but two wallets. Both had enough id in them to reunite them with their owners. How's that for some easy random acts of kindness? If you're in the mood to do some good, get on your bike and look around! You never know what you mind find.
But we are back in China now, and I am reunited with my second favorite bicycle (my first favorite being a bike Jeff bought for me a few summers ago that is so jam packed in storage that it is possible I will never see it again). Here I am, loaded for bear on my way home from Metro. Ah, I love my bike. And my bungee cords.
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