Considering that at some point in our childhood past, almost all of us rode a bike, it’s pretty incredible how much fear bikes can inspire in adults.
There’s the fear of riding in traffic — that’s probably the main one, and something I won’t deal with here.
There is also the fear of how to take care of the bike itself — compounded by the fear of the all-too-common assholish guys at bike shops who ignore you or sneer at you by default when you walk in the door.
But here’s the beautiful thing: Bicycles are really quite simple machines. That’s one of the things that makes them so glorious. And it is not hard — really, really not hard — to learn how to do a basic safety check on your own bike and get it ready to ride as the weather warms up.
So, with the weekend coming up, I urge you to watch this totally charming and relaxing video about the ABCs of how to tune up your bicycle for spring, from the good people at Etsy and one of my favorite nonprofits in the whole wide world, New York’s Recycle-A-Bicycle.
Then blow the dust off your ride, follow the instructions, and get out there on the bike. You can do this thing!
