I Like to Do It
I did it every day this week. I’m not bragging, or proud. It’s just that I like to do it. Sometimes I do it with friends, sometimes by myself. I’m not a role model—I don’t use protection. I’m aware of the risks and it’s my decision. I don’t care if you think less of me.
I’m sure you know I’m talking about something else, and that this isn’t particularly clever. But the fact is, I like to ride without my helmet. Up until last year, I wore one without fail from the time I started racing.
Now I work for a company where I can get out for a lunch ride. Between the bike, clothes, bottles, shoes, towels, spare tubes, helmet and everything else being shuffled around, something is bound to get left behind. Eventually the day came when I forgot my helmet, so I just rode without it. It wasn’t a big deal. Some time later, it happened again, but it took three or four times to stop feeling naked, and well, start to realize that naked feels better.
I’ve ridden with a helmet for more than twenty years. I don’t hate it, I don’t like it, I hadn’t really given it much thought. I just put it on because it’s required for racing, and of course, for my own safety. But, before I started racing, I was just a kid. I grew up without helmets. I raced around on home built choppers, bmx bikes and later ten-speeds. My friends and I scavenged lumber from carpenters working on homes in the neighborhood, building ill-engineered ramps that made local legends of the fearless among us. We raced down hills with tears streaming from our eyes to see who could get to the bottom first. We learned about hand brakes. We played bicycle tag that invariably ended with someone scraped up and bloody. We lived on the fun, excitement and freedom that our bicycles gave us—masters of our own destiny, at least until dinner time.
It’s not that a helmet deprives us of that exactly. But that layer of insulation, protecting us from the dangerous world out there dulls our senses. It frames the top half of our view of the world, an ever present shell we peer out of. I hadn’t noticed the wind, the rain or the sun become incomplete experiences—but they had. I hadn’t noticed, until I left my helmet home a couple more times.
The weather this week has been clear, cool and sunny, some of the nicest days so far this fall. It’s on days like these that I forego the helmet. The crisp fall air and the awareness that these might be the last nice days for a while, somehow make it feel more “right.” There is a simple perfection in pedaling, the wind in my hair stirring the life inside me and a pure, uncluttered view of the world that makes the experience whole—or perhaps wholesome is the word.
It’s not about taking risks or adrenaline, it’s not about independence or rebellion and it’s not about looking euro. It’s about feeling every sensation that makes me remember why I love riding my bike.
