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When I'm riding my bike, I feel like a superstar. Nothing exhilarates me like wheeling around town, my jacket billowing in a flash of golden Gore-Tex, puddle water streaking off my tires.

In these pedal-powered moments, I often feel amazed that I'm on a bike at all. Growing up in Vancouver, I always admired my city's legions of two-wheeling environmentalists and healthy lifestylers, but I assumed I could never do what they did.

In theory, I wholeheartedly supported the cause; in practice, I sheepishly declined invitations to the Critical Mass bike ride. I'm unusually deficient in two skill areas that seem important in the cycling world. One: sports. Two: steering things.

In 1989, at a parent-teacher conference, my Grade 2 teacher broke the news that I was "handicapped." Her evidence? While all the other children in gym class shimmied up the rope like chimps, I just clutched at the bottom, swaying and squishing my eyebrows together in terror.

In 1993, I was so bad at volleyball that my Grade 5 gym teacher sequestered me in the cloakroom to practise my skills alone. "Oooh, I'm so mad!" I griped inwardly, but I was only mad in theory. I was thrilled to have been excused from smashing my forearm into a puffy red mass.

As for steering, during a family holiday in 1994, I got to drive a cute little surrey with a fringe on top. The musical theatre charm faded when I narrowly missed the ditch.

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At 16, I was reluctant to apply for my driver's licence. My parents talked me into driving around my uncle's big yard just to see how easy it was. Despite my white-knuckled caution, I drove directly into a tree.

With all of this history stacked against me, I didn't think I would ever take to barrelling down public roads balanced on two inches of spinning rubber. I first learned how to ride a bike years after my peers, and only under duress. On a weekend trip with my friend's family in Grade 6, I admitted that I didn't know how to cycle and was coerced by my friend's appalled mother into learning. She ordered me onto the seat, launched me at a gallop and let go in spite of her promises not to. I didn't die (or even fall down), but I didn't become an instant bike fanatic either.

From the ages of 11 to 26, my cycling experience consisted of two activities: circling my parents' driveway while secretly pretending to be an equestrian; and attempting to keep up with my rollerblading friends on seawall outings. I don't count twiddling away on the stationary bike. Though cardio machines may be good for the heart, I never found them good for the soul: Pedalling while going nowhere made me feel feebler than ever.

My motivation for cycling finally increased when, just over a year ago, I moved into a fabulous house far from the public-transit routes on which I relied. I wanted to live there, but only if I wouldn't be stuck there. I had recently warmed to the idea of cycling thanks to a bike activist friend who had taken me out for a few rides on quiet roads.

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Encouraged by these experiences, I enrolled in a one-day commuter cycling course with the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition. The day before, I cancelled because of a sickness that was almost certainly psychosomatic. But the morning of I felt better, and guilty, and realized I could still make it - if I biked there. So, I suited up in my new commuter jacket, leaving the tags on in my haste, and wobbled up the hill to the community centre.

The jacket gave me the glamorous look of a bike habituée, but my jeans, soaked in the rain, gave me away. A real cyclist would have known to wear rain pants. I didn't own any.

When I arrived (late), my classmates were commiserating about one-way streets and downtown traffic. I just wanted to learn to leave the driveway. Luckily, our instructor was patient and pep-talked me through my first ride down major traffic arteries, keeping me company at the back of the pack. I was shaking the whole time - and not just from my soggy pants - but I felt radiant.

Since then, I've made incremental progress with longer and more challenging commutes. I wasn't an ace right away, though. I'll never forget the baffled stare of my triathlete friend when I confessed I cycled so slowly because I was scared that if I shifted gears on my bike - a cantankerous police sale deal - I'd never shift back. "Maybe you should experiment with that," she finally said, gently.

I have shifted gears now, in more ways than one. Bike riding has become part of my life and I love it. Cycling is totally different from the old cardio machine: When I bike, my pumping heart and quads are taking me somewhere, reminding me that I'm capable of feats of surprising utility. I bike all over town (in rain, up hills, at night, you name it), and I've saved a bundle on bus fare. These days, when I'm waiting at an intersection in my yellow jacket - a kind of team jersey I feel I've now earned - I exchange smiles with the cyclists beside me.

Who knows, maybe volleyball is next.

Alana Prochuk lives in Vancouver.

Illustration by Jason Logan.

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