Mia

I’ve always enjoyed riding bikes. Well, once I got over the pain of crashing headfirst (or should I say pinky-first) into a light pole when I was learning to ride a 'big kid' bike. After THAT though, the love really developed. Growing up, money was tight, but through some sort of wizardry, my parents always made sure that I had pretty much anything I wanted…except a yellow bike. Yellow being my favorite color and bikes being super cool, obviously. After a few years of riding my sister's hand-me-down bike, Santa had finally gotten me my very own yellow bike! It was a “boys” bike at the time - you know, flames, with orange and black details, etc. Santa apologized to my parents for not being able to make me a “girl” one in time for Christmas, but I didn’t care. I rode that thing into the ground. I’d do donuts until I was dizzy. But eventually I grew out of it and eventually, without knowing it, I took my last ride on my yellow bike.

Fast forward to March 2023- My fiance at the time, Tom, had been riding his e-bike all around Raleigh. He’d done a bunch of research (as he does) to find the best fit for him and the type of riding that he wanted to do. He even made sure to get one with a passenger seat so that I could ride with him, even though up until that point I really didn’t have much of an interest in biking anymore. Once I got on that bike though, I felt my love of riding come back and it wasn’t enough to just be a passenger anymore. After some months, I decided it was time to get one for myself. Life, and my much more financially responsible fiance, had brought me back to earth though. First of all, e-bikes can be expensive and it wasn’t a necessity for me. Given my upbringing, that should have ended the discussion... but it didn’t. On top of that, we didn’t have a lot of space to store it, we were getting married that year so the budget was tight, and really, we had Tom's bike which quickly became “our” bike and I used it whenever I wanted. Tom got me accessories to make riding his larger bike easier and that suited me fine. So to be honest, I did let the idea go for a bit. In the back of my head though, I knew I still wanted my own and if it was yellow…

So yea, I had let the idea go and was ok with that. But on the 27th of March, on my 27th birthday, my golden birthday, Tom surprised me with my very own, yellow e-bike and I cried. He did his research (again, as he does) and found me a great bike at a great price, but his number one priority was that it had to be yellow and preferably without flames, although I’m old enough to know now that flames are actually pretty badass on a kids bike. All that to say, here I am, at 27 years old, riding my absolute dream of an e-bike around Raleigh! To yoga, to the coffee shop, to the grocery store, to my now-husband’s parents house.

Do I ride every day? No. But when I do, it’s so much fun and takes me back to the time when I was a kid without a care in the world. Sometimes it just takes one ride on someone else’s bike as an adult to kick you right back into the spirit that you had while riding one as a kid. 

And yes, I have done a donut or two with my cute little helmet on my cute little yellow bike in my cute little city.