Vicious Cycles

I’ve never liked bikes. I inherited my sister’s as a child, and spent a long summer riding up and down our road until one of the other kids pointed out that it was a girl’s bicycle, which to a young boy was like hearing that the handlebars were laced with poison. I never rode it again, except for an experimental ride in the back garden, where I couldn’t be seen but kept tumbling into the pond.

That was bad enough, but my outright loathing of bikes comes from one very specific summer holiday, and one very specific series of accidents.

My best friend and some of his family were going to stay at a holiday camp, and I was invited. There weren’t enough seats in the car, so my friend and I sat in the boot on the way there, staring out of the back window and trying not to bounce about like pinballs whenever we turned a corner.

After we arrived (dizzy, but only mildly concussed) I was eager to stretch my legs. The resort was nestled in some four hundred acres of forest, crisscrossed with dirt roads and littered with little wood cabins. Ours was nice enough - a simple timber affair, with plenty of modern comforts inside, although there was a particularly vicious patch of brambles just outside the front door that I made a note to avoid at all costs.

I’d also noticed an awful lot of bicycles about: dozens of people riding this way and that on the dusty paths. Despite my concerns, it seemed the only reasonable way of getting around, so after dropping our things off at our cosy little hut, we all went to rent our bikes.

The rentals were all black, and in the sort of condition that suggested previous owners had preferred to ride through the trees rather than around them. I got about twenty yards from the rental place before my chain detached itself from the gears and my pedals stopped working.

‘Was this normal?’ I wondered, as everyone else rode away with ease. I was beginning to get the idea that bikes and me don’t get on very well.

The next morning, my friend and I were enlisted to ride to the park shop and buy some food. The early morning mist still lingered as we left the cabin and fetched our bikes from where they were leaning against the wall. My friend sped off down the road as I fumbled with the clasp on my helmet.

Not wanting to get left behind, I quickly found the pedals and pushed. The bike lurched forward as far as the bramble patch, then stopped. I looked down, and saw that my right shoelace was stuck in the gears. I tugged at it uselessly, then, to my horror, the bike began tipping slowly - agonisingly - sideways. There was nothing I could do.

I was still pulling the thorns out of my skin a short time later, when I caught up with my friend.

‘What happened?’ he asked, smirking. I gave him a dark stare and rode on.

We soon caught up to half a dozen girls cycling ahead of us. They saw us coming, and - probably thinking they were doing us a favour - slowed to let us pass.

‘You go ahead,’ said one, smiling. ‘You’re better at this than us!’

So we overtook, painfully conscious that we now had a sort of reputation to live up to. This was no doubt the peak of my riding career, and it lasted for about fifteen seconds before my chain threw itself from the gears, and I plunged into a ditch at the side of the road. The girls soared past in hysterics.

By the time we reached the shop, I was bruised, bleeding, and covered in grease, and my friend was in fits of laughter. We bought what we needed, and I steeled myself for the journey back.

‘I’ll race you,’ he said.

‘You must be joking.’

He grinned, and sped off down the road in a cloud of dust.

Now I’m not sure exactly what happened next, but a few minutes later I caught up to the sight of a battered old rental bike, upside down in a bush, with the rear wheel still spinning like in a cartoon. The fresh groceries were scattered over the road and, somewhere in the foliage, my friend groaned dismally.

I laughed so hard I rode straight into the ditch alongside him.

I’ve never ridden a bike since.

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Written for the weekly short story competition on the 'Writer's Block' Discord server.