Hell on Wheels

Why do they say -- when referring to a long lost skill -- it’s “like riding a bike,” as if this is something you never forget? Well, I forgot. It had been 35 years since I rode a bike. I guess the statute of limitations had run because this was an alien form of movement to me. When I was a kid I never had a bike. My mother made no bones about it. She had lost a younger brother to a bike accident when he was a late teen, and so I was not to have one. She fully confessed that this was irrational, but this was to be the law of the land in the Golland household. As a young lawyer I actually bought a bike in an effort to self-teach, but that was 35 years ago, and it was not a smashing success.

A couple of weeks ago, Lily bought a bike and encouraged me to do the same so we could share this activity. I asked her why she was in such a hurry to get her hands on the proceeds of my life insurance policy. She assured me she harbored no such thoughts. This morning, with our friend Maggie in town, the three of us set out on bikes --Maggie and I on rentals -- to explore the Isle of Palms. Why the bike rental folks let me have this contraption is beyond me. I took off in a style that can only be described most generously as “wobbly.” Madly over-correcting, and otherwise displaying the kind of erratic behavior that most sane folks steer clear of like the plague, I tried to make my way out of the small parking lot.

Allow me to get the bad news out of the way right away. Over the course of the next three hours, I fell four times. Once when I simply could not negotiate a left turn in the time allotted and spilled over into someone’s front yard. A second time when I ran headlong into an oncoming cyclist because of my paralyzing indecision of whether to stop or turn. This one was on concrete and left me suitably bloodied. It is a tribute to the other cyclist that he didn’t flatten me. The third and fourth spills were on the beach where diabolically placed pools of water appeared out of nowhere causing me to exit my bike as if it were fitted with an ejection seat.

I will say that once I got my sea legs, I loved seeing what was for me previously unseen parts of Wild Dunes and other parts of the Isle of Palms. Some pretty gorgeous neighborhoods, great views of the marshlands, and the picturesque intercoastal waterway and local marina.

I also came away with a vastly higher level of respect for Lance Armstrong.