After my fall yesterday, and a series of panic attacks related only to the bike,  I talked with my therapist Friday afternoon – she knows me very well and has a gift for cutting to the chase.

We both agreed that I should halt my bike adventure and resume it on Monday or Tuesday when I have an appointment with Tyler, a bike tech at the store where I got the bike, and he will help me learn how to ride it.

She pointed out that falling is not a big deal, it comes with bike-riding or almost any athletic enterprise. Even joggers fall down or trip on things.

I told her the bike riding was bringing up a lot of nasty old memories, we agreed I should blow that off and move on. I am not into being a victim all of my life, I have been spared the extreme tragedies so many people have suffered.

She said I was notoriously impatient about things and because writing came so easily for me – I never finished college or took any writing courses and wrote 26 books – I wasn’t prepared to do what most people do when they start something so new and far from my life experience.

That is, learn how to do it right.blee

I expected to just get on the bike and ride it, and while I pulled that off a couple of times, I quickly ran into trouble and new situations I wasn’t prepared for.

She pointed out that I hadn’t ridden a bike in more than 40 years, and had never ridden an e-bike or anything like it.

I told her that when I went to the bike store Thursday, I asked Tyler about riding the bike, and he pointed out the different boost speeds in the bike, which I didn’t know existed. I was pressing buttons without having a clue as to what I was doing.

Tyler told me the gear setting when I started should be a one, mine was set at 9. I realized in speaking with him that I had not really bothered to ask for the help I needed right away and was trying to bull my way through it on determination, not experience, or knowledge.

I suppose you could call it arrogance. It is the truth – I’ve never really learned how to do anything but writing and navigating a computer. Those were the two things I needed to do to maintain the life I wanted. I never needed to ride a bike.

This was familiar to me, I understand my impulsiveness and quickness to get frustrated. My therapist and I have worked on that before. So this weekend, I’ll set up a time with Tyler and start learning. I will not give up, I like riding very much, the little of it I did.

My therapist said this was not about being old.

At 73, she pointed out, I am less agile and have less balance at times than when I last rode a bike. I might also have to build up my leg and calf muscles, which I can do in cardiac rehab, which begins Wednesday.

It should take some time, and I should be careful about how I do it. But, she added, expect to fall again, it will certainly happen.

I admit I thought I could just hop up on the bike and ride. I see the mistake. So I’ll pause the bike adventure and restart it, the way I should have in the first place. Stay tuned.

Seeing Tyler and working with him – I like and trust him – is the mature way to deal with this,  she agreed.

As always I find myself fending off some dubious and unsought advice. I’m not surprised anymore, I expect it. There is also, of course, some good advice.

One reader wrote “considering you just had a heart procedure I assume you are on blood thinners, wear as much protective gear as you can if you insist on riding right now! These will make you bleed like a stuffed hog! Perhaps you should wait till spring to take on this adventure following all your heart procedures?”

Clearly, this was a stranger to my writing. Many bikers are on blood thinners and we do bleed a bit more than other people, but I have shed blood a number of times and never gushed once. Do stuffed hogs bleed?

In fact, cardiologists love their heart patients to ride bikes, that is not, to me, a reason for protective gear beyond what is prudent. And why would festering over this all winter make me better in the Spring?

And no, I am not waiting for Spring. Not a chance. I loved the advice of Alys who is 79 and has run her bike into cows.