My First Love

I can still remember the day I laid eyes on my first love... No blue eyes or sweet words – just two wheels, a chain and a hint of freedom.

Parked down the back of the local bikes and mowers store was a second-hand, base model Avanti road bike. I’m not sure why I gravitated toward this bike. I didn’t know anyone that showed any interest in bicycles. I hadn’t even learnt to ride a bike until I was maybe seven or eight. Like most other families, we had a motley collection of beaten-up bikes in a pile in the garage, used mainly to buy $1 lolly bags from the local dairy.

This bike was different though. A racing machine – in my eyes, anyway – it alluded to something grander than our very ordinary Mount Maunganui beach town life. The bike itself was Ferrari red with flashes of white. It had a “carbon” fork – more likely a cheap steel fork with a cosmetic layer of carbon. It was at least one size too big and weighed nearly as much as I did, with pedals I didn’t know how to use, swooping drop handlebars and a price tag that far exceeded my income from weekend shifts at the local ice cream bar. After persistent nagging, my dad paid and I paid him back $10 a week.

I was no bike prodigy. I would ride slow laps of Pāpāmoa Beach Road. Despite flat trails, with a stiff ocean breeze providing an irritating headwind, I would often be passed by middle-aged men or retirees, which annoyed me and only encouraged my competitiveness. In my overactive imagination, I was a pro. In reality, I was an uncoordinated, anxious fourteen-year-old with no discernible talent but with an emerging sense of grit and tenacity.

I discovered there is not necessarily a bright joy in the process of slow improvement, but there is, at least, a quiet satisfaction. Over time I developed more strength. I dabbled in road racing, then turned my attention to the slick high-speed surfaces of the velodrome. I lived within a community of riders, our lives revolving around gradients, gears and questionable tactics. Eventually adulthood called and I had my son, then another, and the burning desire to prove to myself that I could hold my own subsided, probably due to the sheer exhaustion that comes alongside motherhood and a career.