My encounter with bicycles was quite late. During the first years of my childhood we lived in a hilly area, with few paved roads, most of the roads were dirt and in the rainy season there were big muddy areas. Conditions that were not at all favorable for riding a bicycle.
When I was about four or five years old, my father showed up with a velocipede, it was not new but it was in very good condition. It had been used before by one of my cousins, about four years older than me. She had gotten too old for the velocipede and my uncle told my father to bring it to me, I was sure I was going to love it.
The only place to ride the velocipede was in the living room. Every morning my mother would push all the furniture out of the way, opening up a little more space for me. I would spend long hours rolling from one corner of the living room to the other.
A year later my father had cement laid on a small patio in front of the house, a flat area of about forty square meters. That space became my main playground, I stopped driving the velocipede in the living room and on sunny afternoons I would go out and ride around and around in that wonderful rectangle.
When I was about twelve years old, I had finished elementary school and was starting high school, I moved with my aunt and grandmother to their house which was near the sea.
Near the high school where I was studying there was a beautiful boulevard that stretched several kilometers very close to the shore of the beach. Years later, in December 1999, a landslide of great proportions destroyed that beautiful boulevard.
Some afternoons when I went to the library I would walk along the boulevard and always saw many children riding bicycles.
One day, a boy younger than me, about ten years old, invited me to ride his bicycle, it was relatively small, maybe a ring 22. I confessed to that boy that I did not know how to ride a bicycle, but he said that it did not matter, it was easy to learn.
The boy's willingness to help fed my spirits and I set out to ride. I gave him the books I was carrying and sat down. Both feet reached the ground very easily. I put one foot on the pedal and for the first time I felt the vertigo of instability. I couldn't even roll two meters. The boy laughed and encouraged me with his hands to keep going forward. That afternoon I spent about an hour trying until frustration made me give up. The boy told me that he was always around in the afternoons, that whenever I wanted he could lend me the bike.
From that day on, every afternoon when I left the library I went to the boulevard to look for the child. After about two months of trying, I managed to advance about twenty meters. From then on I was gaining experience with that friend's bicycle.
When I went back to live at my parents' house I stopped riding my bike. And throughout my adolescence and early youth I never touched one again.
After finishing my university studies I moved to Maracay and soon after my mother and my two younger brothers also moved to a house in the same sector where I lived. When they arrived I already had my first child.
One of my brothers was starting college and every day he came and went by bicycle, he had a ring 28 racing bike, it was a very light bike, but a little high for me.
I would see him arrive, after pedaling about forty kilometers there and back, and I was a little envious. One fine day I made up my mind and asked him to lend me his bike. In front of my mother's house there was a big parking lot and there, going around and around, I regained my balance and started to feel like riding a bicycle again.
When I got home I told my wife that I was going to buy a bicycle, and she was fine with that. We went to a store and I bought a semi-race ring 26, a little heavier than my brother's but it also had the gear system.
Every afternoon I would shoulder my bike down the four flights of stairs from my apartment to the street and ride to my mother's house. As I became more confident, I increased my rides, and in my best days I would ride about forty kilometers.
I taught all my children how to ride a bicycle, I bought them all a bicycle and many times I rode with them on long rides. My youngest daughter, who now lives in Europe, rides her bicycle every day from her house to the bus stop, where she leaves it in a specially designed parking place until she returns in the afternoon.
Nowadays I still make short rides in the vicinity of my house. Some vision problems have made me fearful to ride in areas of heavy vehicle traffic. Bicycling is an activity that I have always enjoyed.
I am publishing this post motivated by the initiative proposed by my friend @ericvancewalton, Memoir Monday, in its twenty-eight week. For more information click on the link.
Thank you for your time.
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