Back in ‘96 or ‘97, Volkswagen ran a limited edition model of the Jetta, called the Trek. They gave away a free Trek bicycle with the car. My boyfriend at the time already owned a much nicer bike, so he gave me his Trek Jetta. It wasn’t fancy, and it was far too small for me (I didn’t really know at the time how much difference that made), but it was my ride throughout college and my early 20’s, following me to I forget how many homes in four different states. Its chain rings ate the leg of a favorite pair of pants when I forgot to roll them up. It bore silent, un-mocking witness to my first lung-busting singletrack ride at elevation, just a week after I’d moved from parts lower. It took me around town and back home again, and I repaid it by letting it squeak squeak squeak away, developing tiny islands of rust here and there. It met the demise of so many bikes in Albuquerque when it was stolen out of my back yard almost four years ago. I never got to apologize for my rank neglect.
After several bikeless months, my Man Friend took me bike shopping. Thankfully, he’s better at staving off shopping fatigue than I, and we made the rounds of the bike shops in town. Gary Fisher and Giant and Raleigh, oh my! Everything felt great, simply by virtue of being the right size for me. What a revelation! I used a convoluted, impromptu vocabulary to describe the different bikes, dubbing them beefy, butch, insubstantial, squirrely, lumbering, cramped, crisp, or dense. A few were definite no’s, but the maybe list kept getting longer and longer. You’ll know it when you ride it, my shopping taskmaster companion assured me. Apparently bikes are a lot like art or porn.
But he was right. At the first pedal stroke of the Rockhopper, I grinned and couldn’t stop. A love affair had begun, and, as with all mature relationships, my new love benefited from my past mistakes. In the last three years, I’ve learned how to take care of my bike. My mother’s foresight in giving me oilcloth kitchen aprons has proved fortuitous–I’ve found they double quite nicely as bike mechanic aprons (thanks, mom!). I’ve upgraded a few components, which felt like a big deal–you know, something real cyclists do. I’ve trimmed her down for commuting and errand-running, and she’s by now logged thousands of miles around Albuquerque.
I’ve dabbled, off and on over the years, in running. It always seems like such a good idea, flying down a path, putting one foot in front of the other, moving over the ground under your own power. I’ve fantasized about running the Caldera Marathon. I even have dreams about running. But the reality is never quite as attractive. For one, I have the delicate stride of an overweight elephant, matched with some anatomy-experiment-gone-wrong feet. Pounding the pavement becomes far too literal, and my joints stage a protest.
But put a girl on a bicycle, and it doesn’t matter how unsoftly she walks.
What I love about cycling is much the same as why I go for a long hike every chance I get: moving through space, propelled only by your own muscles and blood and breath is powerful. Sure, you can waste the experience by focusing on how much slower you are than someone else, or how you’re breathing like a steam engine and you look fat in these shorts and oh my god I’m so out of shape why am I doing this ? Sure you can. I’ve done those things. Or you can have this epiphany and learn to revel in your own physical power, slight though it may be at this moment. The epiphany, for me, was this:
Fitness is not only for the fit.
Neither you nor I will be on the cover of Runner’s World anytime soon. So what? You and I have the same equipment as that cover model, and if you can set aside the judgment that comes with red-faced huffing and puffing your way up that hill while you squish out of your clothes in a few places, then you can appreciate it. Feel how your muscles move in exactly the same way, transporting you from there to here. Feel the energy that flows through you, the breath that fills your lungs, the heart that pushes blood out to your developing muscles. Do this hike, this walk, this bike ride twenty more times, then feel how it’s a little easier to breathe; put your fingers on the more defined mass of quads beneath your skin. Look around you; appreciate what it means to be outdoors and to be in motion. Remember that you really are doing a bold thing, and one that far too few folks make it a point to do. Start a passionate love affair with things that make you sweat. One day you’ll catch yourself admiring your own little muscles in the mirror, and then you won’t be able to stop that moving.
Two months ago, my own love affair reached a new milestone. I bought my first road bike. I call her Sexy. She’s like a gazelle that I can saddle up and push around with my two feet. I had a formal fitting today at my favorite shop, putting the magic of geometry to work in my employ, heightening my efficiency and comfort in the saddle. After each adjustment made me that much happier about being on the bike and that much more ready to be on it more often, I’m wondering how anyone puts their two wheels away for the winter. You make your own heat when you pedal–and there’s no sitting in the driveway waiting for the thing to warm up. Cover your more delicate bits, and you’re ready to go. I’m just sayin’… performance fabrics, like beer, are proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy.
Go play outside. Grin so hard you have to pick bugs out of your teeth later. Replace all thoughts of fat or slow or can’t with a simple yippee! It really is an effective eraser. So are high-fives–my friend Johnny taught me that. Maybe this Gutter Bunny will see you out there.
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