My First Bike Crash (Part 1)

I think there is a longer story to be written about this, you’ll see why if ever I finish it. But I’ll put this up now because I promised it weeks ago. Plus whenever I try to describe the crash verbally  I use this frenzied “ker-splat!” motion with accompanying hand movements that's severely unfunny. So here goes:

I bought a bike. Finally. This is after months of saying I would. Not to mention the weird a-side in Sydney where a friend and I bought a cheapie off the internet. I made him test ride it since I worried I’d crash it. That’s something I prefer to do in private. But tearing down then suffering up Bondi hills (that’s suffering while walking the bike, I didn’t even attempt riding) on a bike with questionable breaks is a bad way to learn. That bike ended up, like many peoples, becoming a household fixture. Sort of like the fuse box, unsightly and useless until you absolutely need it.

That is not this bike however. This bike is an off-road/on-road Hybrid—the Apollo Alfa with Carbon prongs and 24 gears. The salesman told me this following me waving my opened palms and admitting “I don’t know anything.”

There followed the awkward moment where he measured me up for the bike, which involved me posing in various ways (“Extend your leg. No back. No bend your knee.”) while he judged my leg-extension and crotch-al comfort. Then he asked if I’d like to take it for a test ride. “No” I answered. He stared. “Are you sure?” He asked. “Yes” I replied. 

(I should mention here that I am a terrible bike rider, mostly because I have no balance. I struggle to tie my shoelaces while standing up. Walking is problematic—I will run into something I can plainly see: mostly doors and corners. I don’t treat it with surprise anymore, more like a quiet indignation; as if I’m not sure whether I ran into it, or it jumped out at me. Frankly I don’t want to know.)

So to me, the bike-store was a hundred bike pile-up just one attempted pedal away. Or else it would be the infinitely worse wobble-then-collapse, where you become pinioned by the bike, your leg hair being pinched by gears and prongs. Can you tell that's has happened to me before?

I’m sure he meant take it outside, but the store-front opened right onto a four-lane one way road. I was positive my ability to turn would abandon me; I’d wobble at high speed into on-coming traffic—that is if a doorway didn’t jump out and grab me first.

So yes, I was sure “No” was my answer. 

Then, after a long back and forth about bike-locks,helmets, water bottles, back and rear lights, and Lycra (kidding!) , the bike was mine to ride (shakily) home. Oh and FYI: I walked it out of the store and around the corner. No amount of crotch-al comfort could allow for my gangly, uncontrollable legs scrabbling their way over the bike-frame.

....To be continued.