The Tour by Denise Scott

Author:Denise Scott
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
Published: 2012-09-30T14:00:00+00:00

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I was now in D Team at teachers college and had chosen to do an elective in bicycle riding. (Disappointingly, the ‘How to grow and use wheatgrass’ class had been full.) As part of my assessment I had to go on a 40-kilometre bike ride, an extremely adventurous move on my part. Not only did I not own a bike, but I didn’t know how to ride one.

One weekend before the bike ride I went with my parents to stay at Cousin Nor’s house in Shepparton. It was her fiftieth birthday. That Sunday afternoon, Noreen’s sons dragged an old two-wheeler bike out of their shed, dusted it down and helped me climb on board, and by 5 pm there I was, at twentyone years of age, riding around Noreen’s Hills hoist screaming, ‘Mum! Dad! Look at me! Look at me! I’m riding a bike! I’m riding a —’ and that was when I fell off and felt quite foolish, given that everyone had come running outside to witness the historic event.

Back in Melbourne I bought myself a fancy bright-green ten-speed bike, and five days later I arrived at the starting point for the 40-kilometre ride.

The leader of the expedition asked if anyone was inexperienced. I was the only one to put up my hand and was assigned a ‘guide’. His name was Jim—he was a ring-in, a friend of a fellow D teamer—and he explained he would ‘shadow’ me for the entire journey.

And so off we set. The first few kilometres were a breeze. The road was flat and straight—so much so that at one point I even managed to ungrit my teeth and smile, but only briefly, because the next thing I knew we were going up a steep hill.

I was struggling when Jim rode up beside me. ‘Scotty, why don’t you change gear?’

I didn’t answer. Not because I was being rude, but because I didn’t have any breath to spare on verbalising words, plus I felt too humiliated to admit I didn’t know how to change gear. I’d never done it before, and besides, it required me to take my right hand off the handle bar, and I was terrified by that thought.

At this stage, the climb was so steep that my bike was wobbling, having almost come to a standstill.

‘Scotty, why won’t you change gear?’

I felt trapped and told Jim the truth.

With no fuss or fanfare he moved in close, leant across and changed my gear for me, and that night I slept with him.

The fact that I had only ever slept with one man before, not to mention that at the end of that 40-kilometre bike ride I couldn’t walk, indicates the true magnitude and charm of the man. Then again, the fact that at the end of that 40-kilometre bike ride I also couldn’t close my legs possibly made the task that much easier. Or perhaps it was indicative that I was finally ready to move on from Mr Right?

Except I wasn’t ready to move on; I wanted to stay with Mr Right.

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