As for driving, it's a stupid story... when I was around 7, we went on holiday in the Isle of Wight, where we went to the Robin Hill Adventure Park. I queued for five hours to get on the rope slide. Finally getting a turn, I was flying happily through the air when a toddler broke loose from the crowd and ran in front of me.
I tried to swing myself up out of the way but with inevitable synchronicity she was in front of me at exactly the wrong moment, and I kicked her squarely in the forehead. She burst into tears. I burst into tears. I think I was crying more than she was. Being a superstitious Jew, I took it as a sign that I should never get behind the wheel of a car, because I've never forgotten that moment of impact.
But really, what nonsense. You can't spend the rest of your life at bus stops because of something that happened so many years ago, that would be too Flatliners for words.
So this weekend I went for a cycling lesson, with Patrick from London Cycle Training. Patrick is clearly evangelical about cycling and gives me a short disquisition on the physics, the engineering, and the sheer poetry of bikes before we go to London Fields to practice. He is very patient, though I'm a bit flustered and he must feel like he's dealing with a simpleton, eg:
P: 'Turn left out of the gate... Actually Annie, left is in the other direction.'
P: 'How long will it take if you let it go for the bike to hit the ground?'
Me: 'About 5 seconds.'
P: (slight pause) 'Well, more like 2 seconds.'
P: How will you stop the bike?
Me: With my feet.
P: With the brakes.
But all goes pretty well. I can't explain how weird it is to think of yourself most of your life as someone who can't do a particular thing - I've been a pedestrian forever - and then you can.
Hah! Next, watch motorists and innocent bystanders cower in fear as I attempt a driving lesson...
cycling Flatliners superstition
13 comments:
Excellent. Well done. I've been meaning to check out those lessons. I cycled when I was a child, but haven't in about 12 years. I tried a few months ago with my boyfriend. He was incredulous; I was wobbling like jelly and paranoid that A CAR could come and KNOCK ME DOWN. So I need a better (and more patient!) teacher. Thanks for the tip.
What a great post, both moving and inspiring. And good for you, for transcending your limitations! Not everyone can, you know.
"People are broad-minded. They'll accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic, a dope fiend, a wife beater and even a newspaperman, but if a man doesn't drive, there's something wrong with him."
-Art Buchwald
I love being a pedestrian. One of the things that annoys me about BKK is that it's just too hot to walk in for any length of time. It's gone from being a canal city to a car city, without anything in between. (The SkyTrain and subway are good, but not extensive enough.)
This is one reason I really don't like the idea of Los Angeles.
Cheers, Adrian. I too am scared of the CARS (also lorries, vans, not to mention other cyclists), I think it will just be Victoria Park for a while.
Here you go my dear:-
http://www.londonschoolofcycling.co.uk
Thank you Alda, I feel all 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway'!
Tim, tee hee! It's like Fahrenheit 451 - walking and reading being suspicious activitites.
No flâneur-ing in Bangkok? What a shame. I like walking, it's just being dependent on the tube and the buses that gets you down, (especially when the bus stops try to attack you.)
Both my kids learnt to ride their bikes in Vicky Park. Don't go in the pond, it's very dirty in there.
Did you do the drawing btw, very good.
i taught a girl how to drive once. costs me the car and the girl later.
Wheels are terrifying. I was the last person in the world to learn how to ride a bike. And still can't drive. And can hardly cycle. I shudder in horror when I think I used to cycle to university through central London. I must have been too dim to remember to be scared at the time, though I do remember motorists having fun trying to kill me. Stick with Shanks's pony...
hee hee hee when I was learning to drive the instructor said 'turn right, turn right' and I kept heading for the bus stop. You should've seen the people run!
Realdoc, ah, sweet! I will be avoiding the pond if I can possibly help it. I did do the drawing *cough* well all except for the bicycle...
Treespotter, you a brave man. I keep asking my dad to teach me to drive but he seems resistant...
BiB you too are brave. Our resistance to other forms of transport is clearly because really we should be carried around in a palanquin like eastern royalty.
GG, haha! I love it! I can just see that's what it's going to be like when I get behind the wheel...
Fellow pedestrians, I could embrace you with glee. I need to rescue my mountain bike (21 gears. Yeah. I use all of them!) from my parents garage. The quote about driving from Art via Tim is so very true. I get Home County harbingers of doom prophesising that I will have to learn to drive once I leave London. They don't seem to have grasped the rather obvious solution to that quandary...
I can't remember how many gears my bike has: it might be 18 or 21. I haven't ridden the thing in ages, and even when I did I only used about 4 of them.
Mind you, I live 10 miles from work and the buses are rubbish, I live 300 miles from the girlfriend and the trains are rubbish: I wouldn't survive long without my car.
Guess what! I just bought a bike on ebay Annie! I nice little retro 25 year old number - I have to pick it up still from man in Mill Hill but we can go bike riding together! Yayy!
BS
Del - leave London? How can you leave London? Isn't there just a big swirling grey mist once you go beyond zone 4?
QE, 300 miles? That's just bad organisation, my friend. (And can I have your bike? Though I have not got as far as anything sophisticated like gears yet.)
Sar, hurrah! I might have to buy one to practice on as L's gears have bust.
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