ride on...

 Today is National Bike to Work Day.  My west coast brother, who lives many miles of hills and dips away from his work place, was glad to tell me that he had the day off today.  I was pleased for him.  My other brother, two years younger than me, and I got our first real bikes when our family moved out to our country property.  He was 8 and I was 10.  Since our mom was firmly against us riding along the busy road in front of our house, we spent a lot of time riding up and down our driveway and along the path to the barn.  It was slow going but we did learn.  Another glitch was that my brother's legs weren't long enough to reach the pedals on the red boy's bike so I rode that one while he learned on my lovely blue girl's bike.  Since we were pretty isolated where we lived, it wasn't as embarrassing as it might have been.  Eventually we learned, and he grew into the boy's bike, and we were allowed to ride to neighbors' houses and the ditch and woods where we liked to play.  Such freedom.  Since I became an adult most of my bike riding has been done on stationary bikes.  I bought one during the pandemic and assembled it in my bedroom.  I rode a lot of miles on that bike during the most restrictive times of the pandemic, and while I can't claim that it was the only thing that saved my sanity, it certainly helped.  These days, near where I live downtown, there are bikes available to rent and also zippy little scooters.  I have been tempted to try both of these but common sense, and a healthy fear of breaking something, has held me back.  If I ever do try riding a bike again (somewhere very private with no one watching) it will have to be on a bike with no gears, that stops when I back pedal.  Unlike with cars, where I gladly went from standard to automatic transmission, I have never wanted gears or hand breaks on my bike.