Personal Narrative: How To Ride A Bike

When I was in 1st grade I wanted so badly how to ride a bike. I would watch my friends ride their bikes, and all I wanted to do is ride with them. The problem was not the bike, I had a bike. The problem was that I tried, and tried, and tried. Every time I tried, I would fail, and it didn’t feel like I was getting closer to being able to ride my bike. I would get on my bike, and get myself all pumped up, and take off. And within seconds, I would be laying on my face, on the pavement. I was giving up hope.

At this in my life I lived on Fort Carson Army Post in Colorado. Families are constantly moving to this post or away from this post. During my 2nd grade year, a new family moved to our cul-de-sac. This was a large family, this family had 4 kids, all adopted except one. The adopted children had all been adopted from rough homes. One of their sons, Manolito, was in my class. We became close friends with each other. When we would play, his older brother Zack who was his biological brother, also adopted, would play with us.

The three of us, Manolitio, Zack, and I, would everything together. At first, since I couldn’t ride a bike, we would walk almost everywhere, but Fort Carson is a big post. They both knew how to ride a bike, so they got sick of me always having to walk everywhere. They decided they would
I started to watch all the kids as they got to the school. The older kids would use to start slowing down, use the brakes to stop, and simply hop off their bikes. Some of the older kids at the time would “drift” to stop; by that I mean they would slam on their brakes and turn the front wheel, moving in a fluid motion like a drift on a car and/or motorcycle. After successfully learning to ride the bike, something I almost thought would be impossible, I knew I could learn how to use the brakes. Then I started realizing I could do so many things on my bike, and eventually I