It had been years since I last went biking, and never for this far of a bike ride. I remember learning how to bike as a child, exploring the streets near my house on two wheels. Yet biking was one of those concepts that lingered in my mind as something enjoyable but often inconvenient, for to go biking one needed to find a bike somewhere. I haven’t found renting bikes to be easy in Austin, so though I appreciated the sight of YouBikes when I came to Taiwan, I didn’t break outside my habits to actually take one for a ride. Just the thought that they were there as another option for travel was comforting enough.
But when one of my study abroad program coordinators invited me to go on a biking trip, I felt eager, excited, and just a bit concerned. I did want to see Taipei from a bicycle, but I since it had been so long since I had gone biking, I didn’t want to do it “wrong.” This first thought led me to realize that I attribute so much “necessary” knowledge to small things with which I’m unfamiliar, from taking the train and flying to another country to riding a bike for extended periods of time, as if there’s this wealth of information that only people who have done these things for a long time would know. After recognizing this pitfall, I have been reminding myself that there isn’t a single “best” way to do everything — something I know in theory but often become reluctant to put to practice. After this initial reaction of concern, I chose to focus on the excitement and adventure of biking rather than my hyperbolic concerns.
I fell off the bike twice. The first time, two paths merged into one and I announced my presence to the other biker too quietly, leading me to find myself on the ground beside the road with dirt caked on my legs and grass caught in the spinning pedals. The second time I was trying to bike up a steep hill and realized too late that I didn’t have enough strength to keep the bike balanced. After both wipeouts, I found myself laughing. Rather than fretting about the mistakes, I saw them as a source of amusement. I felt most concerned and afraid when considering the possibility of doing something wrong; when a mistake happened, my first thought were of entertainment rather than embarrassment.
But even with these wipeouts, I found pleasure whirring through the parks of Taiwan, listening to the clinks of switching gears and trills of birds. I have spent less time outdoors than I’m used to while balancing an internship and intensive language courses, so I cherish these sorts of opportunities that help me understand both my surroundings and myself.