After recently crossing over to the dark side of clean eating, spiritual healing hippie reading, and incessant workout routines and spending time in the country with friends, I decided that the next best step to my journey would be to get a street bike. I’ve had this bike for 3 months, and don’t give me too much credit – I still drive my car. BUT, and none of this is at all relevant to the story I have to tell, I plan to minimize my driving time when I return to Nashville where sidewalks and bike lanes are a normal thing.

Anyway.

If you search – and I mean really search – the streets and crevices and hidden areas of Newburgh and Evansville Indiana, there are a few beautiful scenes (that are only occasionally interrupted by loud rednecks and industrial plants). The Ohio River fronts are among those places. So after 3 months of owning this bike, I had only ridden it one time and I don’t see it as very significant because it consisted of biking up hills in 100% humidity for 20 minutes, messing up all the gears and considering “accidentally” pushing my bike into Kentucky Lake, never to be dealt with again. So I disregard that experience.

My first ACTUAL ride on this bike happened yesterday. I woke up at the crack of dawn – like, 5:30am – drank my orange juice, ate my eggs, and squeezed myself into some exercise pants. I was ready for my 28 mile trek from gorgeous Riverside drive to…wherever 14 miles from that is.

First. That trail isn’t 14 miles long, I was lied to. It’s 7 miles long and as soon as I figured that out I felt less like a badass and more like a 30something-year-old girl riding a bike.

Second. I knew it was going to rain, but I was determined and prepared. My iPod and phone were safely tucked away in my pocket, sheltered by a Zip-Loc bag. No rain was going to stop me.

Well the rain stopped me. I sat under a bridge with a one-legged man in a wheelchair and waited for the rain to let up because I was worried about my precious electronics. Note to self #1: If you want a pleasant “nature” experience, maybe you don’t need your iPod and cell phone. Just a thought.

The rain stopped and I kept going, my soaked shirt and pants making me a good 7 pounds heavier than when I started.

First thought after the rain subsided? “I want to finish listening to that album.” Now, I don’t know which two wires in my brain unintentionally crossed, or which nerve temporarily fell asleep, but un-strategically, I reached into my pocket and with both hands I attempted to grab my iPod. I’ve ridden this bike once, I probably shouldn’t be trying the get-the-iPod-out-of-the-bag-with-both-hands-trick yet. So, inevitably, the next thing I know, I’m laying on the side of the trail with my bike on top of me, trying to shove it off before anyone sees.

I get up, brush the grass off of me, and quickly shoot my head back and forth to make sure there aren’t any little children or old men or women or dogs or any living thing around that could’ve just seen what I did. At this point, I’m just trying to get away, but no, no, it’s not that easy.

My chain came loose, and I, only having biked a few times since God knows when, am convinced that my bike is broken and I’m going to have to pitifully walk my bike 7 miles back to my car (because why would I ask any of the other professional-looking bikers on the trail to help me? Pft.)

Now my modern-teenager/adult personality can tell my baby booming hippie personality to suck it, because having a cell phone proved to be immensely helpful on this nature ride. Thank God for cell phones and biking-enthusiast friends who know how to talk you through a bicycle malfunction.

And I’m off. Wind blowing in my hair, Of Monsters and Men playing in my ears…

Keys.

My keys are no where to be found. That was the cherry on top of this wonderful sundae I had been preparing all morning – rain, crash, broken bike and throw on a lost key because it’s a special day. Imagine this: the next 30 minutes, I’m biking/walking up and down the same 50 yards of grass looking for my key fob before ultimately giving up and calling for a spare key. The interesting thing? 8 people passed me while I hopelessly searched for my ride home, and although I was making it painfully obvious that I had misplaced something important, not ONE single person offered to help me. I like to think that the human nature as a whole is more thoughtful than ignoring a discouraged young woman shuffling through high grass for her belongings, but I don’t know.

So basically where I’m going with this story is no where but where we are right now. Long story kept from being any longer – my ever-so-thoughtful friend rescued me with a spare, and an hour later I went back to the spot where I had fallen and crawled on my hands and knees until I found that damn key.

All negative aspects of my ride aside, I did walk away with some pretty gnarly bruises, a lesson in riding with no hands, 500 calories burned, a cool picture, a feeling of success after listening to Of Monsters and Men from start to finish, and a semi-interesting story to tell.

While I was gliding around in circles in the parking lot of the tennis courts at the river front, waiting for my brother to save the day, I thought, “wow, I could probably somehow figure out a way to humorously blog about this marvelous misadventure and make people read it.”

So I did.

Jms