Everyone wants a bike

So if this blog is a diary of sorts, a way for me to talk about my life and as well as memories, then let me report: Everyone wants a bike.

When I wake up before work, I’m lately feeling a weight, anxious. I know once I get to work it is going to be chaos, a build up to frantic demand. We could have several customers lined up at the register and many more out on the floor all needing time and attention toward their decision to purchase—you name it: lights, a lock, a helmet, a bicycle. It is up to us, me, to show them how an item works, answer questions, and work with them on fit and size. It’s amazing how little or how much a person may know. For some a bike is that thing with wheels, so to talk about tire size or the number of gears is getting way too technical. For some they have read every review and know way more than me. All of this can be intimidating for me.

I’m expected to be the expert—and I do a terrible job of masquerading.

All I really want to convey to them that it is fun, healthy for both the mind and the body, that for kids especially you can feel free, independent, whole on a bike. I want to sell the experience, what it means to wake up and explore the world on two wheels. But this is harder than one might anticipate. It is intuitive, something to be felt, acquired rather than taught. It is a bit like poetry, it must get inside of you and rewire the brain rather than imposed.

For some customers, the easy ones, they walk in and are open or else know what they want and are enthusiastic to simply get out on a bike. Others can be themselves anxious, and in my anxiety, I have to convince them that they can do it. Be a cyclist.

I am less sure of myself in this process of communication. That feeling I get while riding, is not something I manufacture, it simply washes over me. And, in the end, I come away confident, self-reliant, able to see myself as capable.

Until the next day when I wake up, mindful that I have to start all over again building myself back up. Believing in myself and my ability.