Riding, Like Flying
I once had a friend who staunchly maintained that their fantasy super power would be the ability to fly. Despite derision on the basis of lack of creativity, they remained steadfast in their choice. It wasn’t until I started cycling that I understood the fixation. You see, this friend also loved to ride their bike. They prized freedom over everything; the ability to soar with relative ease over great distances. There’s a power in being both a part of a landscape and also above it, both literally and figuratively. They loved the ease of it, the weightlessness. You become something else when you ride, when you fly.
When I was at university, a group of friends and I completed the London to Paris cycle ride in (just) under twenty four hours. Apart from being an excuse to consume an obscene amount of pastry and wine, and get obnoxious custom jerseys made, this was the longest ride I’d ever completed. I was utterly unprepared. My vintage Raleigh’s heavy steel frame was met with a mixture of concerned looks and outright mockery at the Trafalgar Square meeting point. I can’t say that this was the ride that I fell in love with the physicality of cycling, but riding into the dawn through French countryside, feet thawing, watching the sun burn through the mist on the paved railway paths did stir some of those soaring feelings which would become familiar. The sense of romance was, however, dampened by a disgruntled French farmer who apparently didn’t appreciate contributions of non-bovine manure on his land.
Cycling in London is dangerous, but I’ve never felt in danger, not really. It’s been a while since I was hit by a car. I’m probably due another soon, statistically. But my hubris refuses to acknowledge this. I delight in being fast, faster than cars off the blocks, other cyclists. I surreptitiously peek at drivers through windows. Race me race me race me, catch me catch me catch me.
On the good rides, my body sings. The bike becomes an extension of me, we move together, the boundaries between the soft engine of my body and the sleek architecture of the frame blurring. Hips, wheels, core, cage, legs, drive. The push pull of my hamstrings, the sweep upwards like the shot of an arrow while my shoulders brace. The bad rides are good too, but more so as reminders that I can do hard things. I’m tough enough, I can put my hand in the fire and breathe through it. I’m stronger because of it. I enjoy the softness of a good meal, a hot shower, the caress of a lover, fresh sheets, decadence in general more because of it.
Tasting the lightness of a ride on holiday is bliss- hire a cruiser and meander along a canalside, a beachfront, through the blue-gold evening of an unfamiliar city. Reach your hand out to the person riding next to you, laugh as your wheels wobble, the imbalance sending you out of parallel, back together again. The weightlessness of being away from home with a backpack full of bodega treats and a bottle of cheap but perfect local wine pairs perfectly with the ability to ride somewhere quiet and pretty with someone you like, free agents moving without restraint.
Legs tangled with a lover, they carried me here. Our knees touched under the table earlier, my foot brushed theirs in the cab, we joked that we should never be left unchaperoned. I catch sight of myself in a mirror, cleverly placed next to the bed. Hips, core, the muscles in my thighs shift luxuriously. For a moment transported to the ecstasy of the end of a hill climb before heat breaks over me and I shudder, spent, against them. Riding, like freedom.