My First Real Ride

So, you know how people always say things are just like riding a bike, something you learn once and know how to do for the rest of your life? Well, they've clearly never seen anything like me riding my bike today. I felt like I was back in pre-school again, picking up a bike for the first time. Okay, that's somewhat of an exaggeration. I still know the basics and can more or less balance while I'm actually riding. I knew from the get-go that the clipping in and out of the pedals was going to be particularly challenging but I'd been practicing in my room, so I thought I was ready for the real thing. And I did struggle a little, mostly with getting my feet out of the pedals. As it turns out though, clipping in and out wasn't the real problem. Stopping was.

I discovered the problem with stopping when we hit our first red light and everyone came to a stop. Except me, that is. I just kind of tried to pull both feet out of the pedals and sort of hobbled and hopped and floundered around until I came to a very shaky stop. The next red light was where I encountered my real problems. As I took my left foot out of the clip, I tried to lean on my right foot, which was unfortunately still clipped in. Needless to say I ended up on the ground. As if this wasn't embarrassing enough, I did pretty much the exact same thing at the next red light. And again while trying to stop while biking around the lake. Twice. My knees, elbows, and hands are pretty scraped up but I ultimately ended up figuring the whole stopping thing thanks to the help of a couple teammates.

I really enjoyed the ride, though. We biked up to Lake Montebello and did a couple of laps around it. Biking through the busy streets of Baltimore was a little scary cause I'm still not used to it, but the lake was really pretty and I actually feel like I learned a lot.