Flashes of Panic

The way my bike is adjusted, the seat is fairly high, even though my legs aren’t very long. (Serious bike people might suggest that this means my bike doesn’t fit me well. I’d agree with them if I understood what they were saying.) The crossbar is just about high enough that it’s uncomfortable to stand over the bike with both feet flat on the ground.

This means that every time I start out from the ground, there’s this fractional second where I’m actually sitting in the seat, balancing, as my feet leave the ground and head for the pedals. “Well, of course,” you say, “don’t you always sit in the seat and balance on a bike?” No, not exactly; you put a good deal of weight on the pedals, through your feet, and balance that way. (This is subconscious, and it’s the reason recumbent bikes look scary to me: no weight on the feet.)

I wonder if other people do this, or if they’re more graceful as they get rolling.

In that fraction of a second, I get the feeling that always comes between the last day of something and the first day of the next thing—between graduation and the first day of work, between the last day of one job and the first of the next. I’m moving and being held up, but I don’t have my feet in yet.

The other thing I remembered this morning was the college classmate of mine who referred to my college bike as my “flying machine.” I’m still not sure why, but I think it’s because of the way someone riding a bike looks light and mobile, like a feather on a draft. It’s never that easy when you’re the one cranking, of course. I’ve noticed the same thing looking at people in kayaks; they always look like they’re flitting around atop the water like big bugs. Then you climb in, and you’ve got to push; it’s never as light as it looks.

Now playing: Polar Bear from Some Friendly by The Charlatans