Learning to ride is an Amazing Adventure that becomes a life long activity. I don’t remember learning to ride, but I recall my dad taking the training wheels off my early childhood bike when I was 4, and started riding a 2.5 HP mini bike when I was 5. I must have started with a children’s tricycle; my older sister said we had them when we were young.

But the mini bike lead to a dirt bike followed by a few street motorcycles. In 1991, I was hit by a car - 55 MPH impact, flew 100 feet through the air landing on my unprotected head. I was 23 and in a coma 90 days. I got my class C licence back in 1994 (100 hours supervised driving) and in 1995 considered a motorcycle licence. I began by purchasing an 18 speed mountain bike, I was 25 then and just rode knowing I was going to crash. The bike balances itself at 5 MPH, so going fast enough is an excellent starting point. Knowing I was going to crash on asphalt, I wore a leather jacket for protection. That was a me thing, I live with a brain injury, but don’t understand it; rather, play the hand I’m dealt. Don’t look down; rather look in the direction you want to travel. I got speed wobbles in the handlebars before the crashes, so my head would be shaking to either side, confusing my brain, resulting in a crash. After a couple weeks of that, improving every day, riding got smooth, in heavy traffic too.

Well, in 1996 I graduated to motorcycles again, and after a year riding with a permit, got a motorcycle endorsement on my driver’s licence. Rode 36,000 miles in a couple years, and then crashed a softail in the mountains. I was riding too fast, and broke my neck and pelvis in that 1999 crash. But in 2016, wanted to start riding again. I tried an adult tricycle, and still ride one today.

For me, it began with a bike, child’s tricycle I think, and today an adult tricycle, with two wheel cycling in between. Bikes are indescribably wonderful, but they require momentum to get going…