I have always hated bicycles. When I was wicked young my father pulled some "Grew up in the Depression era" shit on me. He pulled me out to the street outside our house and made me learn how to ride a bike. There were no training wheels and every time I fell he would say "Get up" until I figured out how to ride. It was like being thrown off a raft and being told to swim or drown. My father got the bike at work, somebody had brought it in. It was pink and it was a Barbie bike. There was a painting of her on the chain guard. Jesus Christ how do you give that to your male child. I learned how to spray paint the next day. I painted it blue, it was a banana seat bike and now that it wasn't pink it was totally fine.
I got a paper route when I was like 7 or 8. I walked the whole route with the bag swung over my shoulder because riding a bike was basically impossible with newspapers. When I was 10 I woke up on Christmas morning and went out. There was a huge bike, I was hoping it wasn't for me. Then I realized it had a basket and I knew it was for my paper route. It was black and had giant wheels. The chainguard had a name on it. It was called 'The Dune Rider.' I was mortified at how big the wheels were. The bike looked idiotic. I rode it on a fucking 25 mile road trip they made us do in the Boy Scouts. It didn't have any gears and mountain bikes did not exist yet. That guy running the road thing saw my bike and was impressed. He said, "It's a mountain bike, you're supposed to ride up a mountain on here." Fucking 25 miles with no gears was hell and I eventually gave up and spent the rest of the trip in a car.
