The bicycle story

What Gooly is riding now would be his 4th bicycle.

The first one was a yellow canary three wheeler, which he rode to the swimming pool at the old mooban.

ANd then he was upgraded to a four wheeler. An ultraman one. Bought at JJ mall. When he was 4. He continued riding with training wheels until he came back here. (The bike is still at the balcony in BKK covered with rust and dust)

And then I asked for a free bike from whomever wanting to get rid of theirs. I got a spinner BMX. When he saw it, he cried.

Not tears of joy, mind you.

But cos it was too big. For a 5 yr old. There was no way he could cycle it. Bah!

So we bought him a white beauty. There was a bell. And to decorate it, we have a skull with beaming eyes that goes around one of the spokes. But it also came with training wheels. Bah! To be frank, it was slightly oversized but hey, we want it to last a lifetime. Well.. at least till he is 12.. and then to be passed on to someone else (we didnt know Lolly will come along).

So he rode happily at 20 mph, and 10mph at humps.*face palm.  He was definitely not a biker material.

At 6, i said, "Son, its time for you to drive solo. And to pick up your speed to at least 50mph."

He tried and failed, and lost interest. Suddenly it was too hot, too cold, too tired, too scary, too whatever to ride a bike.

At 7, I said, "Son, you gotta ride it. It's the best thing that you will ever learn. Chicks dig boys with bicycles... not quad-cycles"

He tried. He struggled. He failed. I was disappointed that he wasnt determined enough. And then the tyre got punctured. Co-incidence-nyer.... Dunno if HE punctured it or not.

So we left him and the bicycle for a while. Everytime I said to bring it to the shop to fix it, a response of a very tak semangat "ok-eh" came.

Finally, today after selecting the date from the chinese almanac, and double confirmed with the Book of Fengshui, I have the tyre replaced, and sent him out to learn it by hook or by crook.

Heheh...Actually I was very cheer-leaderish. At every full cycle of the pedals, I clapped and encouraged. He was trying very hard. He perspired. He gripped the handle till his knuckles turned white.

I wasnt even sure if my technique was right. I just said, pedal quick, look in front, relax, relax your shoulder, dont worry, you are doing great, balance your body..

and VOILA! He did it!

I jumped with joy literally. Hooray hooray hooray!

Learning to dip his head into the pool was hard. But man...this bicycling was the biggest hurdle. When i saw him tumbling time after time, my heart was heavy.. I almost wanted to say, "Let's go home. We'll try another day. Or maybe you dont need to ride a bike in your life."

But i didnt.

I kept the spirit of YOU CAN DO IT.

And when he did it.. he was so tremondously proud of himself. The feeling must have been awesome. To try and try and try (for years) and to finally made it. He told me, "Failure is the mother of success." Truly, without failure, success is nothing.

So i guess we have another activity to add into our evening fun.

And oh, Lolly was being all supportive of her brother by sleeping soundly in the car during that hour. When she woke, she eye-witnessed her bro's inaugural 100 meter cycle-ton. Perfect!