Louis
06-21-2011, 12:55 AM
How different my life would have been / would be today if I had never learned...
Link to story is here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/nyregion/learning-to-bike-at-adulthood.html)
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Published: June 19, 2011
On a recent Sunday morning, Bruce Mauro let his girlfriend and two daughters assume he was heading out for his usual routine of playing the organ at church. Instead, he was taking care of some unfinished childhood business: he was learning to ride a bike.
“It’s the first secret I ever kept from them,” said Mr. Mauro, a music teacher and an organist who is turning 50 in September. “Basically when you get to 50 and you can’t do something, there’s that negativity. Part of my not telling them was ‘What if I fail at this?’ ”
Mr. Mauro, a bear-chested man dressed in sweat pants and an oversize bright yellow T-shirt, joined 15 other seemingly fearless New Yorkers who had also never learned to ride.
That morning, under overcast skies, the mildly sloping blacktop at Brooklyn Bridge Park felt heavy with apprehension as teachers from the nonprofit Bike New York doled out bicycles and helmets and explained the basics of balancing and then riding. The students tightly gripped their handlebars and silently tried to follow. The only sounds that could be heard were the “click, click, clicks” of spinning wheels, the chirps of encouragement from instructors and the sporadic joyful yelps when students started to make their first shaky journeys across the road.
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http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/06/20/nyregion/learn3/learn3-popup.jpg
Link to story is here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/nyregion/learning-to-bike-at-adulthood.html)
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Published: June 19, 2011
On a recent Sunday morning, Bruce Mauro let his girlfriend and two daughters assume he was heading out for his usual routine of playing the organ at church. Instead, he was taking care of some unfinished childhood business: he was learning to ride a bike.
“It’s the first secret I ever kept from them,” said Mr. Mauro, a music teacher and an organist who is turning 50 in September. “Basically when you get to 50 and you can’t do something, there’s that negativity. Part of my not telling them was ‘What if I fail at this?’ ”
Mr. Mauro, a bear-chested man dressed in sweat pants and an oversize bright yellow T-shirt, joined 15 other seemingly fearless New Yorkers who had also never learned to ride.
That morning, under overcast skies, the mildly sloping blacktop at Brooklyn Bridge Park felt heavy with apprehension as teachers from the nonprofit Bike New York doled out bicycles and helmets and explained the basics of balancing and then riding. The students tightly gripped their handlebars and silently tried to follow. The only sounds that could be heard were the “click, click, clicks” of spinning wheels, the chirps of encouragement from instructors and the sporadic joyful yelps when students started to make their first shaky journeys across the road.
:
:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/06/20/nyregion/learn3/learn3-popup.jpg