Jen on the Edge

The Summer of Biking Love continues here in Jenworld.

Yesterday, the girls and I decided to walk to the library and our favorite cupcake place.  Then the girls asked if they could ride their bikes and without giving it any thought whatsoever, I said yes.

You might be thinking, “Why would Jen need to give this much thought?”

Because Elegant only just learned to ride without training wheels.

And you’re probably thinking, “So, why is that an issue?”

Because El’s version of stopping herself is not to use her brakes, but to instead throw one leg over her bike frame and, in one smooth motion, do a perfect acrobatic dismount.  If it weren’t so stupid and unsafe, I’d be impressed by her crazy Cirque du Soleil skills.

Also, she doesn’t yet go forward in a nice straight line all the time.  Instead, imagine a circus clown intentionally weaving left and right and that’s how my younger daughter bikes at this point.  Only, her act is not intentional.

So understand my trepidation now?

I opted to leave Bubbles at home, which may not make sense, but I felt confident that I’d be focusing on Miss Doesn’t-Use-Her-Brakes more than anything else.

We set off.

I decided to have the girls bike on the sidewalk and not on the bike lane, which is not terribly kind to walkers and runners, but I didn’t trust Miss Doesn’t-Go-In-A-Straight-Line to stay in the bike lane and not wander in front of a car.

Graceful zipped ahead and then waited patiently for us at each intersection before continuing on.  She is a strong, safe biker and does not worry me in the least.

Meanwhile, Miss Bikes-Like-A-Drunk-Driver was doing pretty well and only occasionally clipping lamp posts, signs, or walls.  She got really good at occasionally sticking out a foot to push off against retaining walls or re-balance herself.

The girls thought that biking would be so much faster and that we’d get to the bakery without breaking a sweat.  As if.  I was running rivers of sweat within the first two blocks.  It’s possible that fear combined with adrenaline might have had something to do with it.

The journey was every bit as long as if it had been on foot, especially since Miss Didn’t-Want-To-Sweat insisted on pushing her bike up the slightest inclines, of which we have a great many here in mountainous central Virginia.

I had the camera with me, with every intention of documenting our journey, but as you can probably imagine, I spent a lot of time saying things like, “El, don’t hit that parked car.”  Or, “El, watch out for that lamp post/retaining wall/random stranger.”  I did take one photo, which I’ll show you in a moment.

We eventually reached our destination and the cupcakes were worth every ounce of sweat:

And then we headed home.  Really, taking Miss Still-Is-A-Little-Girl-Even-Though-She-Thinks-She’s-Big on a three mile bike ride was a bit much and about a mile from home, she was near tears and refusing to bike any further.  I bribed her with a quarter (yes, a whopping 25 cents!) if she’d bike the next block AND use her brakes properly.  That broke the spell and she made it the rest of the way home; whereupon she collapsed on the sofa with her new library books.

And then I needed a nap.

Today, I think I’m going to take Bubbles out alone, early in the morning while it’s still cool.  If my children want to go anywhere, I’ll be happy to drive them.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, just a head’s up that I deleted my account this afternoon. Nothing major or bad happened; I just got tired of dealing with it. Between blogging here, there, and over yonder, plus Facebook, Twitter was the online thing that was starting to bog me down.

If you want to follow me on Facebook, email me offline.

And the good thing is — that is, if you like reading my stuff — now that I’m not tweeting, the chances are good things I would have tweeted will instead end up here on this blog.