How I learned to ride a bike

First attempt #

When I was 8, my parents tried to teach me to ride a bike. I started with training wheels. One day, I fell off my bike (with training wheels), and the wound took a month to heal. I never rode that bike again.

Second attempt #

My freshman year of college, my friends and I were walking around campus at midnight. Specifically, we were in between the Physical Sciences Building and Klarman Hall. This was 2018, when Lime Bike was still in Ithaca. We spotted a bike on the sidewalk and decided to use it. If you’re familiar with PSB, you know it’s on top of a hill, and my friends took turns riding up and down the hill. They came back to the sidewalk and told me it’s not that hard to ride a bike, so I gave it a shot (on the sidewalk, not the hill). I was able to steadily ride the bike for, a minute? But, it didn’t stick.

Third attempt #

Summer of 2019, I was in Beijing. My friends and I were in Wudaokou, and they wanted to bike to the Bird’s Nest. To give you an idea of how long that would take, the distance is around 3 miles or 5 km. I was a little scared, but I figured I could learn along the way. My friends had trouble describing how to ride the bike to me, but if I didn’t figure it out, I would have been left behind. I kept trying to “balance while moving” as someone described it, and eventually I got the hang of it. And then I learned what everyone meant when they said you learn it once and never forget it.

That’s how I learned to ride a bike the summer of 2019 in Beijing.