i think i was 11 when i learned how to bike. but even then, i never rode farther than a kilometer or so. my mates taught me and i did, just for the sake f being able to say that i can. thereafter, i can’t remember the last time i went biking. definitely not in the last 15 years. so even when people say that riding a bike is something you never forget, i’m not really sure whether i can get that two-wheel implement running again without putting my life in jeopardy.

until prerow, that is. see, biking is the only way to get around in prerow. there are virtually no free parking areas, not even when you want to go to the beach. bringing a car along is just an expensive inconvenience. so when, during the first day, our landlady for the holiday apartment arranged for rental bikes for us, i simply said i needed one with a low saddle, hoping against hope that that old adage about never forgetting how to bike was true.


the first day was comical. it was like hauling a memory from the deepest recesses.starting has been a complicated issue of achieveing coordination and maintaining balance. at the end of the day, i felt pain in muscles that i didn’t even realise were there. the second day was worse; everyone wanted to see the west beach, which meant a four km bike… one-way! i barely managed the last 500 meters on the way back. i have seriously considered walking instead, and would probably had, had i been alone. it didn’t help that some tracks were like these on the photo above (photo taken by jan, and it wasn’t even a digital camera!). uneven slabs of concrete make up to a bouncy ride and a sore bum. these roads were probably one of the last vestiges of the DDR regime. they were used by the coast guard and the military, not to keep foreigners out, they say, but mostly to keep unhappy citizens in.


but hah! onto the second week, and i was actually seeing the scenes passing by, instead of just concentrating on the five meters ahead of my front wheel. it was actually fun! and the see breeze added a refreshing bonus to the exhilarating triumph of being able to bike again! towards the end, when the breeze off the beach was too cold, i actually preferred to go biking in the woods and could manage 20 km without complaints.

so it’s true. it’s probably like sex after giving birth. it may take some getting used to again, but you don’t really forget how it works.

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