I don’t know how to ride a bike.

Now for those who know me, this comes as no surprise, mainly because I have no legs.

No, that’s not true. I am legged.

My friends are not surprised because I told them this. You may think this could come at some embarrassment to me, but it never did. It is sort of like when people boast freely about being bad at math; like their ignorance is some sort of badge of honor instead of a conical shaped hat that says ‘dunce’. I just owned my limitation and turned it into a sort of ice breaker. It made me unique and sort of special, like Corky from ‘Life Goes On’.

But since moving to Seattle and now moving to my new digs, not having this ability has become more cumbersome; in Arizona you drive everywhere and just run over the snot-nosed assholes on two wheels. But in Seattle, that is frowned upon.

So this passed Friday I summoned up my courage, left my ego at the door, and signed up for an adult bike riding lesson.

First off, you would think ‘what kind of business model is this? Teaching adults how to do something over 95% of 8 year olds know how to do?’. But apparently there are more people like myself out there than I knew; yes there is a business in Seattle where they teach adults how to ride, and yes they are running some level of a profit.

Secondly you would ask ‘who in the hell is teaching this class?’. Well, it was William. And completely unsurprisingly, he had long hair in a pony tail. What else would you expect?

So their utterly unpatented technique of teaching how to ride consists of this:

1. Sit on bike and keep your balance

2. Drift on bike, no pedals

3. Brake on bike, no pedals

4. Drift and brake on bike, no pedals.

5. One pedal to start, drift

6. Two pedal and go

Anyway, if you don’t know or forgot how long it took you to learn how to ride a bike, the answer probably is ‘shorter than me’. Being an old man, my brain is not as malleable as an 8 year old. So apparently 60 minutes was not long enough for me to graduate to the ‘pedal’ phase of the lesson…….

But 70 minutes was!!!

Yes my friends, you are reading the spewings of a man who ascended to the skill level to pedaling, turning right, and stopping in under 90 short minutes. William said he has never seen anyone with that much natural skill and courage, someone who not only conquered his fears and uncertainties about bike riding, but conquered the hearts of all on-lookers.

After I was ceremoniously carried off by the teams of my new fanbase, I have dedicated myself to the sport of biking, which apparently most in the industry call ‘cycling’. Yes everyone, you now know someone who will not only ‘cycle’ to the store, buy spandex, and intrude on all car’s right-a-way, you may know someone who will ‘cycle’ for sport and/or leisure. I am now close to being a part of bike culture.

All I need is one of these ‘bicycles’ and some steroids.