Bicycling
My sister once prompted me after bingeing an entire season of “Stranger Things”: “Remember when you were a kid and it was fun to just ‘ride bikes’? You didn’t do it because you had to go anywhere, it was just fun to ride?”
I may eventually try biking to work (if going into work is ever a thing again), but I’ve never really been drawn to the idea. And I’m not a fan of bicycling for exercise. I don’t much like it, in fact. I’d much rather run, which is saying something because running is not something I enjoyed at all until I learned how to do it so that it didn’t suck so bad. Look: if you’re running and you get tired you can walk and claim that you’re just walking. If you’re biking and you get tired, you have to walk beside your bike and look completely hopeless and pathetic.
Not to labor the point, but a spin class is my personal hell. Seriously, what kind of sadistic madman could become so completely unhinged that it seemed like a good idea to put a dozen or two people in a room with these torture devices, led by a zealous maniac exhorting them to vigorously pump their legs (while their bodies remain at a fixed location in the room) until their abdomens commit the ultimate act of insurrection by voiding in one direction or the other? That having been said, a leisurely bike ride is still appealing. Or the occasional adventurous ride.
My wife and I have a curious tendency when we are on vacation to rent a bike and go for a ride. Partly it’s curious because we almost never ride when we’re at home: too busy. Partly it’s how we do it: it’s nearly always a more ambitious ride (planned or unplanned) than is appropriate for our fitness level, the remaining daylight or both. We have on occasions narrowly made it back to the rental facility in time, and also straight-up told the rental facility that we simply weren’t going to make it back before they closed and would they please tell us where and how they would like us to leave the bike and lock it up?
Yes: bike, singular. We like to rent a tandem bike, a “bicycle built for two”—a recumbent, if they have one—because the effort of going on a ride that exceeds our stamina is not sufficiently strenuous and because the streak of quirkiness that runs through us is rather deep. We need the extra challenge of communication and coordination as we struggle back to the rental facility after hours and possibly after dark.
A tandem bike is much more like a canoe than a bike: you’re in it together. (There are fewer risks of drowning, of course.) If you don’t believe me, try it. You will quickly learn that clear, concise communication is all-important. You will learn that there is one good way and lots of bad ways to come to a stop. You will learn that getting started is almost as difficult, and that the communication will suddenly become louder and clearer if you’re not both ready to perform either maneuver.
And you will learn that once you have established a couple of procedures and keywords to use to get started and stop (and turn: that one’s important, too) that things can run smoothly for miles. Stops to look at wildlife or get a drink from a fountain can become almost routine. You may eventually feel the exhilaration of being on an adventure and moving perfectly synchronously with your partner and the machine. And you can focus on pedaling harder so that you don’t have to pay a late fee.