It was a regular spring day in California, chilly in the morning but warmer throughout the day. The cool, early spring weather caused the town to be filled with baby green leaves and budding blossoms. Michael was walking to school and he saw a few of his classmates biking past him. He looked like a regular twelve year old boy but what nobody knew was he couldn’t ride a bike, not even with training wheels. Everytime he tried to ride he always fell off or crashed. The reason he never learned how to ride was because when he was four years old, and lived in New York he was walking down the street and saw a biker fall off his bike and his hand got hit by a car. To this day he still can see that moment very clearly, and he is scared that he will fall off too.
“The older you get, the more embarrassing it will be,” his mom always told him. But Michael always refused to learn.
Not knowing how to ride a bike is not that easy to hide, because Michael always had to avoid people who talk about bikes just in case they ask him a bike question, because he would not know how to respond because he knows nothing about bikes. He also avoided the bike racks because a lot of people discuss things about bikes there. Every time one of his friends started talking about bikes or talks about something similar to them, Michael would try to change the conversation as quickly as possible to avoid someone asking him to bike with them or what kind of bike he had?
He always knew that he would have to learn someday, but he always procrastinated and thought to himself, “Let’s let Future-Michael deal with this problem.” Michael always knew he would regret not learning when he was young, but he would also regret if he fell off his bike and got hurt. He didn’t want to learn because he knew it would be super embarrassing if someone caught him riding a small bike with training wheels around the neighborhood.
One day after school Michael was getting ready to go home when his crush, Megan, approached him and asked him, “Do you want to bike around sometime, this Saturday some of my friends are going to bike around our neighborhood, do you want to join us?”
Michael's heart leaped when he heard those words. Never in a thousand years would he have dreamed of something like this to happen. After looking dumb for a second by blinking his eyes stupidly, he said without thinking, "Yeah, totally, sure."
“Great”, Megan exclaimed, “you can just come by my house at… um… 2:00?”.
“Sure! so what’s the address?”
“7292 Emery Way.”
“Okay, see you there.”
When Michael was walking away he was thinking to himself, “Why did I accept the offer, why did I accept the offer, I have no idea how to ride a bike! What am I gonna do?”
Michael rushed home and as soon as he entered the front door he shouted to his mom, “Mom I’m ready, I need you to teach me how to ride a bike.”
“Why now?”
“Oh, most of my friends know how to ride a bike so I want to start learning.”
Michael’s mom knew her son very well, so she could easily tell if he is lying or not and she knew Michael was not telling the truth so she asked, “What’s the real reason?”
“Ugh…, fine. One of my friends from school asked me if they wanted to bike around their neighborhood.”
Then Michael’s mom said that it would be okay there's nothing to be embarrassed about, then she told him about the basics, she said that, “Just pedal your feet and try to keep your hands very steady. We can start with training wheels first.” So Michael tried to ride slowly the training wheels kept him balanced but he kept tilting to the left so his mom held him. Michael started riding but as soon as he started to speed up a bit he remembered his vision of the man getting hit by the car, he slowed down almost to a complete stop. “You okay? Try pedaling faster, it’ll be easy,” his mom said. After she said that Michael sped up and started to get the hang of it. His mom started to let go but he shouted and her to hold on. Michael pedaled down the street but now he had to turn he started to lose it and he stopped the bike. Then, his mom told him, “To turn left, slowly push your right hand out and pull your left hand in, to turn right just to the opposite slowly push left out and pull right in.” Once he turned around he started pedaling up the street with his mom holding on, but his mom slowly let go without telling Michael and he pedaled up the street all by himself.
When he turned around and didn’t see his mom he shouted to her, “I did it!” His mom applauded for her son finally learning how to ride a bike, as a joke Michael bowed twice and told his mom that he wants to go one more time and then take the training wheels off.
So he rode by himself with his mom right next to him just in case he falls down, but when he turns the corner he sees Megan and two of her friends walking home. Both of her friends were laughing at Michael but Megan wasn’t, then her two friends looked at her and she faked a laugh and she started walking.
Then next day Michael wore a hoodie covering his face, because he didn’t want anyone to make fun of him. He knows that news travels very fast in his school and the last thing he wanted was to be publicly humiliated in front of his friends, and more importantly his crush. Between third and fourth period Megan walked up to Michael and apologized that her friends were laughing at him.
“I noticed you weren’t laughing at me, why was that?” Michael asked.
“Meet me here at lunch, I’ll tell you.”
So Michael waited until lunch and during lunch he went to that spot, then Megan came and said, “The reason I wasn’t laughing was because I didn’t learn how to ride my bike until last year, if you want I could come to your house this afternoon and help you.”
“Really? You would do that!”
“Sure, I know the feeling don’t worry you’ll learn very fast.”
“Thanks!”
Megan and Michael walked to his house and Michael practiced riding without training wheels, but Megan still held Michael. He got the hang of it really quickly, soon Megan let go and Michael saw that she let go and he stood on the bike and pedaled to get more speed. He got to the end of the rode and Megan shouted, “Watch out!” But Michael made a sharp turn to turn the bike around and he started biking back to his house.
Then next day he rode his dad’s bike to school and everybody heard that he couldn’t ride a bike, but a lot of people saw that he was riding that bike around. Each person was really confused, but now they knew that he could ride his bike.
On Saturday, Michael biked to Megan’s house and knocked on the door. When she opened the door, Michael asked her, “You ready?”
“Give me one second.”
Megan grabbed her helmet and took her bike out of the garage and they both rode together around the neighborhood side by side. Megan told Michael that biking is easy once you get started, just keep pedaling and when you need to turn slowly rotate your hands. Michael told her that he knew how to bike, he just couldn’t get over the fear. Megan held him and said I’m right here I won’t let you fall. Michael felt a slight chill when Megan put both of her hands on his bike. Instantly the fear of falling of the bike was gone. Michael started riding really well and soon enough Megan let go of him and got on her bike and they rode around together. Once they took a few laps around their block, both Michael and Megan forgot that just a day ago Michael had no idea how to ride a bike.