On Wheels | annotated by Mark

A few days ago I rode my bike 1.1 miles from my house to my third-favorite coffee shop, the one that sells R&B records and bootleg DVDs of nineties action films. I went there because it is the safest one to get to by bike and because, according to my wife, LauraBeth, they have the best iced tea in town. She and I rode together, me in the lead, and then sat outside on their makeshift patio. The weather was perfectly suited for bike riding, the kind of afternoon you get maybe a dozen times a year and the reason you move to a “fifteen-minute neighborhood” in the first place: so you can ride to a coffee shop on a nice day.

This was only the tenth time in my life I had ever ridden a bike. Nine of them have occurred within the past year.

Last summer I took a free one-day course in nearby Philadelphia for adults who wanted to learn to ride. The incident that finally pushed me over the edge was when my eight-year-old niece was riding in circles around me, baffled by my inability to do the same. She asked why I was afraid to do something so easy. And I was afraid: Of falling. Of looking foolish. Of struggling to even get on the seat at a public park and then throwing a tantrum while some teens recorded me on their phones. Mostly I was afraid of finding out how limited I really am. I liked the idea of taking a class with other students—so I wouldn’t be the only one—and of having a teacher I could try to please.

We met under the I-95 overpass in South Philly—four students and three instructors. I got there half an hour early and sat in my car, waiting for someone else to arrive. I saw a man in his early fifties get dropped off by a woman I later learned was his daughter. He paced around the meeting spot for a few minutes, then stood on the corner smoking a cigarette, then paced some more. Finally I joined him. His name was Hank, and he had been raised in Peru. He asked if I was nervous. I said I wasn’t. This was mostly true. I was more eager to finally move on with my life. “This is a good thing we are doing,” he said. “It’s one of the best things.”

The rest of the group arrived shortly thereafter. The instructors asked us to introduce ourselves and share our motivations for taking the class. One woman had been an active cyclist through her early twenties but hadn’t been on a bike since a bad fall many years ago. Another was a college student who had never ridden in her life, but she was going to spend the next year living with family in Vietnam, and they’d told her she needed to be prepared to ride long distances with them. I said I was there because I was tired of letting my wife down, thinking of the many times on vacation when we could have rented bikes and explored some new area together if not for my inadequacy. Hank said, “I have always wanted to do this, but I’ve been too afraid.”

I hadn’t told anyone besides LauraBeth about taking this class. I didn’t want to have to explain what happened if I failed. Now I assured myself I was a physically capable adult who was only trying to learn a skill that five-year-olds around the world master every day.

We spent the first twenty minutes standing in one spot, kickstand in place. We practiced mounting the bike and sitting still. We moved one pedal, then the other. We released and reengaged the kickstand. Hank struggled to move the kickstand with his foot, and there was a five-minute delay while we watched him grow increasingly flustered. The class was scheduled to last two hours, and I was beginning to think we might need to come back for a second session when the instructor told us to strap on our helmets and glide down the (slight) hill without pedaling. We did so, then walked our bikes back up and glided down again. After a few repetitions, we coasted down the hill with our feet on the pedals.

It wasn’t until we began pedaling that it became difficult. Suddenly it required all my concentration to guide the bike in something resembling a straight line. Turning around to ride back up seemed like a task better suited for two strapping men and a team of oxen. Still, for brief flashes, I was cruising. At the bottom of the hill, after another failed turn, I stood next to Hank, both of us glazed in sweat. “Tom, I can’t do this,” he said. “Why is it so easy for the rest of you?” He could barely keep his feet on the pedals when the bike was stationary. After two more unsuccessful attempts, he walked his bike back to the rack, whispered something to the instructor, and trudged away, phone pressed to his ear. I imagined he was calling his daughter, telling her that he’d failed, that it had been a mistake to try.

By the end of hour two, I’d managed to go up and down the hill four consecutive times without stopping. The instructors cheered as they recorded a video of me on wheels, in motion, and under control.

Afterward I drove farther into South Philly to reward myself with a roast-pork sandwich. While I ate, I texted the video to LauraBeth, then to my mom and my brother, who were happy for me but mainly shocked, as if I’d texted them that I’d grown five inches overnight. I posted the video to a couple of group chats, and as much as I tried to downplay it, I was inordinately proud, having proven that, even as you get older, you can still learn. You can still improve your life. You don’t have to cheat yourself out of exploring new pathways.

In some ways my life has been defined by the paths I haven’t taken, out of fear or spite or pettiness. I’ve watched older people in my family gradually succumb to the narrowing of their worlds. Sometimes this process is out of their control—they get sick or injured and cannot physically live as they once did. But often it’s more insidious, the result of a long series of compromises, of opportunities not taken, of friendships and interests and ambitions allowed to erode. My father-in-law was like this in his final years. Whereas once he had been a gregarious and playful man, he spent his later days sitting in the dark, watching TV and feeling bad. As the quality of his life steadily degraded, I could see that some part of him was convinced it was his fault and that he didn’t deserve any better. I’m not arrogant enough to think I can fully avoid this kind of decline—the indignities of getting older are relentless, and it doesn’t take much to break someone down. But then I think about learning to ride a bike, and I remember: It’s still possible to grow and change.

I wonder if Hank returned to the class and tried again. I’ve been checking the cycling instructor’s Twitter feed, hoping to see a video of him, to see his expression the moment it all clicks into place and he feels himself riding free. So far he has not turned up.

Though still building confidence on the bike, I am now competent enough to ride alone in traffic and around potholes and past barking dogs and over curbs. I can roll out of my garage and cruise through my neighborhood and see it from an entirely new perspective. I try to imagine what I look like to my neighbors through their windows, feeling like the main character in a television show: someone they don’t just glance at but think about in their free time. I wonder whether they see the version of me that I want them to see: Kinder, bolder, smarter. More confident and loving and reliable. A man who is open to all the universe has to offer him.

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