Cycling Adventures

  Alright, so recently I've started getting back in to cycling. Back when there wasn't a worldwide pandemic forcing the world to stay quarantined, I had dipped my toes into the world of cycling, but I wasn't really experienced in it, so I only went on one static loop around the neighborhood. I would cycle on the sidewalk up until I reached the house with the purple flowers. Then I would look both ways before crossing the street to the other side. (I don't get why some people don't do that, it takes like, no effort and could be life saving, but I guess that's just stupid people being stupid.) Then I would follow the path until we arrived at the house opposite our house. Then, I would stop, look both ways, and then cross the street once more to go back to my house. 

 But this year, I got bored of just practicing in that one loop, so one time I was a little adventurous and went further on, and my mother got worried about me taking a while to get back. She then found me biking outside of my usual route, and suggested for us to bike around the neighborhood, though under her watch of course, since she didn't want me to get hurt. However, after a while, she trusted me enough to go on my own. 

 However, it was then that I realized that my neighborhood is probably not a place designed for bikers. There are cars that are randomly blocking the sidewalk for no reason, even when there is plenty of space to park! Like, for example, there was this one car that was parked in front of the front door instead of the garage door for some reason, and it was also parked in such a way that it completely blocked the sidewalk in a way that it was almost impossible to sneak by without stepping on the grass. I somehow managed to slip by on the first run around, but the second time I bumped into the car and had to go into the grass. Don't worry, none of the parties involved were hurt, but it was still very annoying. It was also annoying that the one of the neighbors turned on their sprinklers every day, which would be annoying on its own, since I'd have to use the road to go around it, but even worse was that the house was right before a road that cut inbetween the neighborhood for ease of access, meaning I had to spend even more time on the road. 

 I also saw a few people milling around the neighborhood while I was biking around. However, most of them just did their own thing and we didn't really talk to eachother which was fine by me since (you've probably heard this many times) I'm an awkward and shy introvert who gets really nervous when I'm in a conversation with someone I don't know. This shows in this story, where I was biking around the neighborhood like usual, but there was this old lady cutting her grass. I was about to use the road to go around so I didn't bother her, but paused and let me through. I thanked her, and continued on my way. However, when I went around the second time, I saw she was still there. Since I didn't want to bother her AGAIN and AGAIN, I decided to just go cross the road to the other side. It may have seemed to her that I was avoiding her, but I promise I just didn't want to bother her.

Another incident that occurred happened while me and my sister biked around the neighborhood together. There was this mom, her daughter and their dog, which was on a leash that the daughter was holding. However when we biked by, the dog tried to bite me, but I was too fast and the leash pulled it back, so it failed to bite me and pulled the leash, which caused the daughter to trip over and fall onto the ground, causing her to start crying. My sister went to comfort the girl, but I just continued to bike by, which in hindsight seems insensitive, and I'm not sure what was going through my head at that time, but I just continued on. Eventually the family just went inside. However, my sister was still nervous that they would be there, but luckily they weren't, and I haven't seen them since.

 Anyways, it was pretty fun, and I even went biking on almost every day I could since I started, partially because it was fun, and partially because it was some much needed time outside and exercise. Eventually though, I wanted to go even farther out, so I decided to bike all the way to Brighton Park, which is a spot me and my parent have walked to many times before, and a spot where ducks, fish, turtles, and long necked turtles hang out. We have even seen a at least a dozen ducklings by the pond. Of course, however, I needed supervision, since to get to the park we have to cross the road quite a few times.  

 However, one time me and my father tried to get to Brighton Park, and there was this (no offense) fat lady blocking the way, and even after my father rung his bell and asked her to move over, she still wouldn't move.  She might have been trying since I saw her move over a bit when my father instructed her to, but 1: She moved back into the middle of the sidewalk soon after, and 2:When a bicycle user comes by, we usually just go onto the grass to let them pass easily, but she didn't do that even thought that would have been quite simple to do. Anyways, we just gave up and returned back to the house, because there was NO way we were going to cross the main road FROGGER style and get flattened. 

 However, just when I was about to go back into my routine of going around the neighborhood, my mother decided to still give me the experience of going to places other than the neighborhood. Me and my parents then went to the church where I would use to go to to play Pokemon Go since there were two Poke Stops there. It had a few obstacles, but we managed to avoid them. Turning around in the churches road was pretty precarious, so I had to use my brakes to slow my bike down, and on the return trip a few obstacles from earlier gave me some trouble and forced me to use my brakes again, but in conclusion, it was a pretty fun trip. 

Anyways, biking has been pretty fun, and so has the walking that preceded it, but those are stories for another times. Anyways, see you whenever I post next!