Everyday Canvas

Learning to Ride

Prompt: Use these words as inspiration : Two of the words are in German, have fun.
force, rad, guard, trait, dorm, ergebnis

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As a young man, I stayed in a dorm while in Berlin where activists have forced a cycling referendum, putting bikes on the city’s agenda with a bang and guarding their wins with gusto. Since I didn’t have a cheap way to move around easily, I first decided to rent a bike or share one with one of my co-habitants as sharing bikes had become a much-applauded trait within the German psyche.

Despite my positive plans, the bizarre problem was I had never learned to ride a bike. Luckily, my roommate Otto took it upon himself to be my bike-riding teacher, but I was uncoordinated and didn’t get the balance thing quite right. In view of my difficulties, I figured having my own bike would help, so I found a second-hand bike with a good price, but that didn't help all that much.

While Otto was poised for a dramatic change in my attempts and coached me patiently with, “Bitte, langsam, langsam…”, the old man who took care of the grounds wasn’t as hopeful.

On our umpteenth try, he shook his head and muttered with sarcasm: “Ergebnis ist wenn er es nicht schaffe, das Rad zu fahren, werde er es seinen Enkeln schenken.”

(--The result is, if he doesn’t manage to ride the bike, he'll give it to his grandchildren.—)

I guess his remark made something click in my brain, and I was finally able to acquire the skill with enough proficiency. It may just be that the idea of rambunctious grandchildren scared the bejesus out of me.