Realizations

20 Nov Realizations

Sang Hyun resting during this year’s Joshua Tree tour.

I picked up the bike off the ground and just started to ride.  I wouldn’t say it was graceful at first, but I was only eleven or twelve at the time of my first bike ride.  My center of balance was way off – I can still see myself leaning to one side and the bike going toward the opposite directions.  For several hours, I was all over the place, and not the graceful kind of riding you imagine, I mean I was ALL OVER THE PLACE, crashing, braking, meandering, and falling.  After an hour of chaos, I knew I wanted a bike.  It was one of my best riding ever, just sheer joy.

I didn’t become some avid cyclist the day after wanting a bike so badly.  Cycling was second thought in my mind.  Yes, I got a bike (good ole Huffy mountain bike from Toys ‘R’ Us), which I believe I thrashed within a couple of years.  Again, cycling was never really a thought and maintaining the bike never occurred to me.  Cycling, in my mind, was a device to just take me from one familiar point to another. I joined the Boy Scout of America and received another sweet ride (Schwinn MTN) for one of our outings to Long Beach.  It was my first fifty-mile ride, this time to a foreign place via the LA River Path.  I can still hear myself huffing and puffing and whining all the way to our destination.  Even though my first ride was pure agony, I do believe an idea was implanted in my head, the idea to tour with my bike to unknown destinations.

Several years ago I was reintroduced to cycling again.  My brother-in-law got into cycling in a really big way, to a point where he eventually sold his car and his bikes became his only mode of transportation.  I doubt I can ever get into cycling like my brother-in-law has, but I am always right there to lend a hand and tackle the journeys that come our way.