I’ve known how to ride a bike for as long I can remember. I remember biking up and down the driveway or in my friend’s neighborhoods being a staple of summer days. I remember new bikes decked out with big bows on the handle bars being a focal point under the Christmas tree for me and my siblings. There are photos of me at about four years old riding my pink bike with training wheels and streamers on the handle bars. You can see that feeling of freedom radiating off me as I peddled my little legs as fast as they would go.

There is some risk to biking. I’ve heard horror stories from friends about them learning to ride. In fact, for most of my life I had a scar on my knee from falling off my bike in the preschool parking lot. In my defense, my classmate was headed straight toward me on his bike in what I remember to be sort of a class biking free-for-all. I think it was more of a flee from the scene than a failure to ride. Yet, as kids, we get up and keep riding. There is too much joy and freedom to be found on a bike, and sometimes the risk is part of the fun.

At some point you stop biking for the fun of it, I don’t know when it happens, but it does. Maybe it is when we dive more into our after school activities, spending our time on the soccer field or in the dance studio instead. Maybe it was when we began driving and our friends got cars instead of bikes, a very different type of freedom. In college, I saved up for a brand-new bike that I felt very proud of, but I used it out of the necessity of getting to class or work every day. At the gym I hopped on the stationary bike, but really only for the exercise.

This year, my boyfriend and I began biking on a long park trail that goes all the way from our city to the next one over. Each section of the trail unveiled new treasures: hidden footpaths down to the river; historic canals and railroad tracks; places where people set up to go fishing or walk their dogs; great blue herons, tiny chipmunks and wild turkeys; mossy pathways and wild flowers. I love the companionship that builds as we take all of this in together.

The joy of biking returned too. With no end game or goal, biking had the same feeling as when I was young. I felt the exhilaration as we sped down hills and the laughter at ourselves as we struggled up them. I felt the smooth breeze on my skin and the peace of being in nature. I felt the thrill of discovery, of risk, of trying something again. Maybe even now you can see that feeling of freedom radiating off me as I peddle my legs as fast as they will go.