My ass hurts.

Okay, first of all I have to confess that it took everything in me not to title this entry “I have a newfound respect for sodomites.” (My “better judgment” told me that the word sodomite is just a tad too offensive, mostly for its homophobic implications and not so much because of the whole ass-sex thing, but clearly my “better judgment” rarely wins. My apologies.)

But seriously, I got on a bike for the first time in a long time yesterday (and again today) and it was much different than I remembered it. Mainly, I don’t remember this bike seat-shaped soreness. (Yeah, I started that thought with a ‘But seriously.’)

Wounding aside, I have to admit that the whole thing was painfully humbling. Yes, when it came to remembering how to stay balanced on two wheels and pedal it was as easy as, well, riding a bike. But, the ease ended there. Back in the day if I stood on my bike it was to showoff my mad Schwinn tricks. Today, it was the only way I could get enough momentum going to get myself up every tiny hill (and was also a welcomed reprieve for the damaged tissue). Moreover, though I had intended to go out for an hour-long jaunt, I barely made it through half of that and then had to follow it up promptly with a nap. A sad day indeed.

Another element of returning to the world of bike riding which ultimately changes the entire experience is the fact that I've been driving for the last 12 years and therefore know just how easy it would be to accidentally hit a biker. (And, if I’m being honest, oftentimes I actually want to hit these bikers, particularly when they’re slowing me down or hogging the road. I mean seriously, it’s not a vehicle. If you can hitch a baby to the back, it’s not a vehicle). I get tense passing bikers on narrow roads knowing that I am mere inches away from bumping Sammy-spandex into a marsh never to be heard from again. I can’t help but be aware of that as I’m panting up some hill on my bike and I hear the sound of an engine growing ever-closer behind me. (I stopped listening to my iPod while riding for this reason.) As a kid you possess some sort of misguided faith that the drivers are looking out for you. As an adult who could teach a course entitled “How to drive with your knees and get what you want from the backseat,” I damn well know better.

I’m back on the bike per my aunt’s suggestion as a potential treatment for a bad hip. I don’t know what happened (no Olympic injury or even high school sport to point to) but sometime in the last year my hip just started hurting. It started after long walks (walks--- not even jogs or, gasp, runs) and then I found myself limping after long car rides. And then short car rides. And then after sitting on the couch. And now I can’t even sleep on my right side. I recently completed six weeks of physical therapy which accomplished exactly nothing (except, of course, costing big bucks) and have gotten very grumpy about the whole thing. So when my aunt told me that after visiting many doctors herself without success she found riding her bike (her “pony” as she calls it) to be the only thing that helped her, I figured I should give it a try.

I have always wanted to be the bike riding type---thee of the toned, tanned calf muscle. I still don’t understand how they are able to pull of spandex and helmets while still looking sporty and cool. More than that, they seem outdoorsy. I wish I could pull off outdoorsy. (The fact that I don’t even know how to change gears on my bike---or why one would even want to do this---tells me that I have a ways to go.) I had thought moving to NH would be and automatic initiation into this world of crunchy-chic, but alas, nine years of living here has done nothing for my woods cred. (Get it? Not street cred, but woods cred…)

If I can’t be the sporty type than I would certainly settle for being the girl in the pastel skirt to my knees, a ponytail that is somehow both floppy and neat hanging down my back, riding an old-fashioned bike with curved handlebars and a basket full of apples and sunflowers from the Farmers’ Market. Basically, I would like to be the girl on her bike from the J.Crew catalog. However, I can’t even begin to explain how poorly me in a skirt on a bike would work. Just me in a skirt is a risk. Throw in balance, wheels and speed and I am a Hustler centerfold in the making. That is if Hustler centerfolds have bruises up and down their legs and scabbed knees---another reason I'm not the skirted biker type. I distinctly remember a moment in my early teenage years when I looked at the long, slender legs of some Seventeen Magazine model and then down at my own and thought, “Oh, screw.” (Coincidentally, I also remember trying to start a bike riding regime after that, too.)

Just as I realized then that I would never be the model from Seventeen Magazine, I know now that I’ll never be the girl with the golden hair riding my bike or even the type who can make an orange reflective vest work. (How do they do that?) But at some point you have to give up the worrying. I won’t be blond with flawless legs and the possibility exists that I could get hit by a car, but sometimes you just gotta ride anyway.