The Fear and Hope of Learning to Ride a Bike at 54

What are you afraid of? In my case, bicycles terrify me. Writing helps me to face the two-wheeled monster. At 54, I hope to learn how to ride a bike even though it scares me, the same fear as when I’m curled up with a Stephen King novel and I dare not look under the bed.

I know that these are Scottish stories but let me give you an international spark. I deserve a chance because I had to travel 12,000 miles to overcome my nightmares.

My story begins in distant lands, Argentina to be precise. When I was a little girl, I lived in a tiny flat in Buenos Aires with my mum. She was an orphan and no one taught her how to ride a bicycle. One Christmas, she gave me a tricycle with a wicker basket. At four years old, I raced back and forth with my turtle on the balcony. I was so clumsy, knocking over plant pots, that the tortoise crossed the finish line first.

I had a happy childhood, although I was never very sporty. I spent my time with my nose in a book and eyes glued to the cinema screen. However, Gabi, my best friend from high school, was very adventurous. She was the captain of the volleyball team and won many trophies while I only collected bruises from the balls that I never dodged.

Gabi liked a challenge and wanted to teach me how to ride a bike at her country house. We practiced on a dirt road and I fell on the grass so many times that I ended up eating weeds, but I always got back up.

I zigged and zagged, wobbled this way and that, as if pedalling through a pool of jelly. Amazingly, with Gabi’s encouragement, I was able to ride well enough to be able to rent a bicycle on holiday the following summer. We were 18 years old and it was our first trip without adults.

We crossed the pond (which for Buenos Aires people is the River Plate) and went camping to the beaches of Uruguay. It is a paradise of endless undulating dunes, far from modern conveniences, so we needed bicycles to go buy food. We recreated the iconic scene from the film E.T. and flung our bicycles down a steep hill. I could ride in my way but I didn’t know how to use the brakes!

I lost my balance, my bum crashing into the hard asphalt. I felt a constellation of stars nailing my behind and I broke my coccyx. The problem is they can’t plaster that bone. I had to travel by ferry back home, sitting in a kids’ life-ring so my pride hurt just as much as my behind.

After my resounding fall, I never dared to get on a bicycle again!

What lunatic invented such a dangerous and unstable machine? I find it impossible such a flimsy thing with two wheels can support a human being. I think the designer was an eccentric Brit.

Let’s fast-forward the VHS a few decades onwards from the ‘80s. I live in Scotland, married to a Scottish Highlander that I met at the Edinburgh Film Festival. We share a love of cinema. We live happily in Falkirk and, even though it’s out of fashion, we rent DVD movies with subtitles.

Last month, we watched the Wim Wenders film Perfect Days. I felt a deep sense of nostalgia, transported back to my adolescence in the’ 80s when the internet did not exist.

We fell in love with the protagonist, Hirayama, a Tokyo public toilet cleaner who smiles at the sky in the mornings no matter the weather. The film captures the pleasure of enjoying life’s simple things. Hiriyama listens to cassettes on the way to work, takes photos with his film camera as he tries to capture the sunlight that filters between the leaves of the trees, and reads second-hand books when he goes to bed. He also rides a bike!

Inspired by the freedom and happiness of the film, my eco-friendly Highlander gave me a pink upcycled bike for my birthday. Of course, when I saw it, all my fears came back. I felt the horror of crashing once again and ending up in the canal with the swans.

I begged the Highlander to install training wheels. He told me that the new way is to balance your bike without touching the pedals and to glide with your feet. It was hard for me to start and my legs filled with bruises as I kept on hitting the pedals. You probably don’t remember all your bumps and bruises if you learned at the age of seven.

I rode directly towards any obstacle, as if pulled by a powerful magnet. I almost crashed into a lady who was walking her dog, a guy who was running and into the bench of the park where a couple were cuddling. Red-faced, I had to explain to them that I am a beginner biker.

Thankfully, no one made fun of this old lady with protective knee pads, holding on for dear life at the wheel of a pink bike. As I went out every day to the park to practise, people started to recognise me and encouraged me with smiles.

Then it happened – for a magical moment, I felt the wind in my face and the sun on my back as I glided effortlessly along the road. I was really riding!

I usually go so slow that my Highlander can jog alongside my bike and outrun me if he tries, just like my tortoise did.

He jokes that next year he is going to enter me in the Tour de France! I am a dreamer so you never know. Do not let your limitations from the past imprison you. As the character of Perfect Days says when he rides a bike with his niece, ‘now is now.’