I just learned how to ride a bike.

tl;dr version:
I am 26 years old. Today, for the first time EVER, I got on a bike. And, with help and patience from a friend, I learned how to ride it. If I can do it, anyone can. Pretty awesome.


Novelization: 
I never really wanted a bike when I was a kid because I was scared of falling off of it. So I never got one, and nothing ever came up to make me learn how to ride one. Then my dear friend Julie trained for and did her first triathlon, which inspired me to do one too. I hesitated -- I thought "But I've never been any kind of athlete, and I can hardly swim, and I don't even know how to ride a bike, and I hate running." Then I thought "Well, you still could be some kind of athlete maybe, and you can hardly swim because you've never really tried all that hard, and you don't know how to ride a bike because you're scared to learn, and... well, maybe you'll figure something out about the running."

Okay, so, now that my mind was made up, I had to find someone to teach me how to ride. Julie was the obvious choice. As my college roommate, she has seen me make and then execute some of the worst and dumbest decisions of my life, and has pointed and laughed at me on a wide variety of occasions (sometimes when I didn't deserve it, and a whole lot of times when I did). So embarassment or shame wouldn't really factor, even if I fell on my @#$ 50 times or was somehow the worst bike rider ever.

So today, Julie and I and her beautiful bike (this one) went out to her mom and stepdad's house, which has a long driveway and sits on a cul-de-sac at the bottom of a hill. I was firm in my conviction to learn to ride a bike TODAY, because I wasn't about to go home and tell my boyfriend "well, I almost did it," or to spite Julie's time and effort. So the fear was pretty much gone, or successfully ignored. Julie lowered the bike's seat so that I could sit on the bike and still put my feet down on the ground.
Step 1: Push myself around with my feet until sitting on the bike didn't feel totally weird. Ignored pedals until further notice.
Step 2: Still pushing along on foot power, try to coast as much as I could and concentrate on staying upright. This was really hard at first. It felt like the bike would just try to tip out from under me without me having any idea what happened. But eventually I could go a few feet without tipping or having to stop. 
Step 3: Go a bit up the hill and coast down, concentrating 100% on staying upright. This was the longest stage. Brakes and stopping were worked in along the way, and I felt better about going fast once I got good at braking. Eventually, the long-dreaded first fall happened. I remember seeing the front half of the bike swing in front of me, and the next thing I knew I was on the asphalt and several things hurt. Nothing too gruesome, because I was going so slow, but there was a lot of dirt and some bleeding so we went inside to clean it up.
Step 3a: BONUS - My first nutrition issues - a few minutes before I fell, I started to feel like I was gonna hurl if I stayed outside much longer. Noting that it was 86 degrees and I was sweating buckets, as soon as we went in I downed ice water and a few generous pinches of salt from the salt shaker. I washed the dirt out of my wounds and basked in the AC for a couple of minutes and felt much better. Headed back out and felt great the rest of the day.
Step 3 continued: After even more practice, got to the point where I could start from halfway up the hill, coast all the way down without tipping, come to a smooth stop without tipping, and occasionally do a wide turn around the cul-de-sac. Holy crap, it was working!
Step 4: Add the pedals. It took a bunch of tries, because I was trying not to look down and I was still thinking about all the other stuff too. The second I finally got both feet on, Julie screamed "PEDAL! PEDAL!" and I did and I FREAKED OUT with how FAST I was suddenly going and almost fell a second time as I zoomed into a neighbor's yard. After a bunch more tries, I pulled off a few runs in a row where I got both feet on the pedals and pedaled around. Almost there!
Step 5: Start from a dead stop on a flat surface. Off to the driveway. Straddle bike, get the pedal up in front of the dominant foot, put the foot on it and push, and swing the other foot up and on. Whoops, that's put the foot on the pedal, not stand with all my weight on the pedal. Oh, right, don't forget that other pedal. Okay, don't stand on that one either. This took a while to work out. Then my balance was all messed up again because I was thinking too much about the pedals. Julie helped a few times by giving me a push from behind so I'd start with some speed -- and I got it together enough to feel what was supposed to happen for a few seconds before I'd tip. 

I kept trying. Suddenly, I did it. All of it. It clicked and after a few initial wobbles, it just happened as if by magic. I started, and went, and stopped. And started again. Lots of times. I didn't fall, roll, or coast, I rode. AWESOME! So much fun! Steering is still a slight weakness: as Julie cheered "YEEEAAAHHH KEEP GOING!" from the end of the driveway, I concentrated on keeping going as long as I could, and kinda let the bike go where it felt like... I carved several interesting signatures in the grass in her stepdad's front yard, and even ended up shooting up the hill completely by accident once. But I can ride a bike now. And this morning I had never even sat on a real bike. Total time: 4 hours, including the first aid break. 

And then the adrenaline wore off, and the non-exhilirated feelings set in. Oh MAN is my butt mad at me. And I've got a rainbow of bruises on the inside of my left leg, from the number of times I whacked it with the pedal. And my right palm and right knee are banged up a bit from the fall. And there's a few other bruises in weird places I'm not even sure how I got. But it was WORTH IT. And I can't WAIT to do it again. 

People, I am not the "athletic type," and my sense of balance is probably average to poor. But if you're reading this, and it's been years since you biked or you've never got on a bike at all, take my word for it: You can do it. Get a friend who you won't feel embarrassed in front of. Find a quiet and big spot of pavement. Be aware that you'll probably fall, but you'll be going slow enough that it'll just be some scrapes and bruises. And just decide that you're gonna do it. That, plus a couple hours, is really all it takes.