My Nola, My Story: Bikes

My Nola, My Story: Bikes

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Bike riding

An article about the sense of community in New Orleans told through learning to ride a bike.

Shondrel Ortiz

Omeka

December 8, 2017

English

Article

Imagine your hometown.

This is the place where you spent your childhood. You learned to read here, and lost your first tooth. You played tag with your friends from the neighborhood, and probably had your first kiss here too. These are all experiences that I had growing up in New Orleans, most of which took place in my grandparent’s home in the East at a house that hasn’t been restored since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. But this is not a Katrina story. My experiences in New Orleans go beyond surviving Hurricane Katrina and then coming back to the city, and one of my best memories of growing up in New Orleans is when I learned to ride a bike.

I was at my grandparent’s home and the training wheels had just been taken off the bike. I spent hours and days attempting to find balance on the bike. My family would watch me fall and then put a bandage on my scraped knee or elbow before pushing me along on the bike and letting me go, just to watch me fall again. I fell in the grass, in the driveway, and on the street. After spending what seemed like forever in a child’s mind trying to learn to ride a bike, children from the neighborhood came to assist me until I could successfully ride by myself. I could finally leave my grandparents yard and ride around with the other kids.

Fast forward to my freshman year at Xavier. Freshman orientation week was coming to an end, but there were still many fun activities left to participate in. One of these events was a bike ride around the city. I was eager to sign up even though I had not ridden a bike in years, but I assumed that once you learn how to ride a bike that you never forget. I was wrong. When the bike ride began, I couldn’t even move forward more than two feet before I was tipping over again. Every other student had passed me on their bikes and I was beyond embarrassed and on the verge of tears. I had just declared that I wanted to quit and go back to the school, but the staff and security officers who were riding along with me wouldn’t let me end my ride early. They gave me words of encouragement and stayed with me until I could finally ride by myself. This was only the first of many experiences to come where my community at Xavier would give me a much-needed push.

There’s more to communities of color than surviving and striving despite being disproportionately affected by issues like Hurricane Katrina. The spaces that I have occupied in New Orleans, both before and after Katrina, have been full of black joy. Black education and black encouragement are common themes in this city. The sense community I’ve experienced here is unbelievable and incomparable to anywhere else. And there’s so much to learn – I learned to ride a bike here, twice.