Cycling Through the Fear and the Summer

Every year, I set goals for my summers. This year’s goal was to ride my bike to and from work & meetings as much as possible. Depending on who you ask, this isn’t a huge goal, but for someone who gets really anxious about certain things, this was an undertaking for me.

I’m not sure when it started, but I do know my anxiety about physical things came about slowly. Second-guessing my abilities to get through unscathed happened more and more, and the more it happened, the more I hurt myself and gave myself a reason to be tentative. To me, being perched on top of a few metal tubes and hurtling through traffic was a really scary idea. Aside from the fact traffic can be fairly unpredictable in Calgary, I just wasn’t sure enough of myself to feel up to the task.

In all honesty, this summer was a progression of several years. It was years ago when I decided I wanted to bike more. The last time I had ridden my bike regularly was somewhere around 16 years ago, before I outgrew my childhood bike. When we moved to Calgary, the rowing club and high school were each too far away for me to bike, so I never got around to buying a new one.

About five or six years ago, I bought a stationary bike in the hopes I would spend the winter getting prepared and strong. But like 90% of people who’ve bought a stationary bike before can tell you, I did not use it much.

Thinking the problem was the boredom of the stationary bike, I ordered a map of the local bike trails and spent some time cleaning up my father’s 1970’s CCM road bike.

I did not use the bike or the map.

It was all too scary. A few more years went by, and Stephen wanted to go bike riding. After many reassurances from him that I would survive, we hauled the CCM road bike out and cleaned it up again. We went on a handful of rides wherein I did not switch gears because the gears were on the body of the bike and I was too scared to reach down and change them. I was sure the bike would fall over and I would splatter across the pavement, a heap of bloody flesh and broken bones.

I know I tend to exaggerate sometimes in my narratives, but I swear, I’m not exaggerating. I really thought this.

Under the belief the problem was the gears being on the body of the bike, I went out and bought a brand new bike, inexpensive given my track record of a lack of follow-through on this project, but it came in orange, which made it fate.

Since this bike fit me and was easy to use, my confidence grew a bit, but not enough to really feel like I was going to be okay going anywhere. There was only one thing to do about that – go somewhere with it. As spring began this summer, I made a goal: bike to and from the photo lab as much as possible.

Working up the nerve for that first ride was hard. I actually walked the route several times so I knew what the traffic was like, could adjust for left turns, and was sure of where I was going. Walking took an hour and a half and though I grew to enjoy that, but the more I did it the more I knew I had to get on that bike at some point.

The first time I rode my bike was nerve-wracking. I was shaking and sweaty, red-faced, and generally a mess when I got to the photo lab.

But I got to the photo lab. My excuses had gone out the window. I’ve gone from being so tentative and scared to searching for every possible opportunity to get on the bike to go somewhere. I can’t get enough. It feels so good to arrive somewhere under my own power. I no longer need to map out routes obsessively to get somewhere, I’ll just get on the bike and figure it out as I go now.