Riding the wind

Fear requires a response.

Responses can evolve.

Standing up from my computer, I looked out the window to check the treetops before I headed out on a bike ride. Windy, which was not good news.

It was a warm late-fall day—likely the last of the season (for me) to bike outdoors, and I had planned on riding my favorite loop which happens to pass by a lake. Lucky me, for so many reasons.

I would say it’s a gorgeous lake view, but usually I don’t notice because I’m concentrating on pedaling and balancing and what’s ahead of me on the faded black pavement. The wind rushes through on the lake though, and unluckily on this day, the wind was a bit wild even at home out my window.

When I first started biking a couple of years ago, I hated going by the lake on windy days—I'd get tilted sideways just enough that I'd get scared of tipping too far, which by the way means crashing. The fear turned my breathing weird as I started to feel off balance and sometimes the knot in my stomach felt like it was bursting.

General announcement: I'm not a hardcore cyclist. Fast for me would likely be your slow. Exactly perpendicular to the ground is best for me. I am also not super coordinated under pressure.

So I had stopped riding past the lake on windy days.

fear

a very unpleasant or disturbing feeling caused by the presence or imminence of danger

But I wanted (and maybe even needed) my favorite loop. I couldn't get it out of my head—clanking around in there about what to do on the last day of the season.

So, there I was 23 minutes later riding past the lake. The wind pushed from the left and I started to wobble to the right. I instinctively tightened my body to resist the wind, and then a surprising thing happened. I leaned left slightly, sideways into the wind, and carried on pedaling with noticeable nervousness mixed with strength. Before I knew it, I was past the lake and in the safety of the trees lining the faded black pavement, with no weird breathing or bursting knots in my stomach.

Biking in windy weather isn’t a big deal, you know, in the grand scheme of things. But realizing this is a big deal: biking on less windy days had added up to some kind of instinctive bike balance that I didn’t know I had. Apparently little things can add up in invisible ways. Also this: apparently I can grow into doing things that used to be scary. Wow, that really is something.