How to ride a bike

Living in a country like the Netherlands, cycling is a normal, every day activity. It is in your system and you don’t have to think about it. You jump on your bike and it works out. The only problem that occurs to me is finding my keys. But that is a different story.

As I am writing (I totally typed ‘riding’ first.. that is how dedicated I am) this little story, my little brother is teaching a Portuguese exchange student how to ride a bike. Well, I can tell you 1 thing, it ain’t easy! How do you teach one to ride a bike? You have to go back in time and think about how you learnt it yourself. You have to dig deep. And if it doesn’t work out, you can’t really give any tips other than: ‘just do it’ and ‘find your balance’. We grew up with it..

So, I decided to dig deep. Some of you probably heard this story before. I'm sorry, it just really markes the rest of my life.

Here it goes:

When I first learnt to ride a bike it was of course with training wheels. That went really well! I was a fast learner. Then, I had to try it on my own. And that is where it went wrong. Seriously wrong. I was cycling in a parking lot, which was supposed to be safer since there weren’t any cars. That would be the case, if my brakes would work. In this case they didn’t. So I was all excited because I could ride a bike on my own. And then there was a wall. The whole family watched me cycle into damnation and screamed: "HIT THE BRAKES! HIT THE BRAKES!! THE BRAKES! THE BRAAAAAAAAAKES!" 5-year old me: "they don't... WHAAAAA --> CRASH." Into the wall. Yes. That happened. Fact. Concussion. I was 5! Poor little 5-year old me!

I still have a bump on my fore-head. It is where all my intelligence hides!