One Helmet, Two Swimsuits and a Lot of Courage.

One of my favourite people in the world is my roommate. She's a lovely, wiry, blond little gal with a joie de vivre that's unmatched. She's a yes person, up for anything, anytime.

We decided that we wanted to get active in our new community of Greektown and find a sport or recreational activity that we could both enjoy for the remainder of the summer. We thought that swimming in the evenings would be a super idea. My roommate is still learning how to swim and I love the water, so we agreed that this was our best bet. Just for the record, my roommate grew up in Calgary which explains the fact that she's only now getting comfortable in the water. She has come a long way and I'm very proud of her.

We got all geared up for our first swim, and then decided that it was a huge inconvenience to walk to the pool which is about 17 minutes walking from our apartment. We figured that bikes would be the best mode of transportation. It's not always good to have two people living together that sometimes think they're using their better judgement when nobody's there to tell them otherwise. We only have one bike. I will try and paint a picture for you.

My roomie is a petite person and I'm an average Joe, so we decided that she would be better suited to ride on the handle bars. I figured I'd give her the helmet because she's quite uncoordinated, she'll tell you that herself. Safety first! So she climbed onto the handle bars while I held the bike in place, comfortably (but for the bell slicing through her thigh) facing forward. I had the giant backpack on containing our towels, goggles and other swimming paraphernalia, so the backpack and my roomie were balancing each other out. With as much strength as I could muster up, I pushed off the ground with one foot and got my body onto the bike seat.

Although the roommate is small, it's extremely difficult to stabilize a bike that is both front and back heavy. It takes 100% longer to make a turn when a bike is packing as much weight as ours was. I think we probably looked like a shirpa load going down the street. We live in a great neighbourhood filled with lots of families and some children here and there, so the streets have multiple speed bumps. To my surprise, the first one we went over made my roomie yelp "Bebop!" I guess it was because the bell jabbed her thigh and swearing just isn't that cool anymore, so "Bebop" it was.

"Bebop!" turned into our horn since the bell on my bike was out of commission. When rolling down the street while doubling on a bike, you want people to get out of your way quickly because breaking just doesn't work. Momentum is up, steering control is down. "Bebop! Coming through!"...and the crowds would part. It was phenomenal. I'm pretty sure we looked like a pair of 'special' people trying to get to their swimming lessons. We didn't care, we were on fire! "Bebop"!

It took us about 7 minutes to get to the pool every night for a whole two weeks. We enjoyed the bike ride there, getting into our swimsuits, putting on our pink goggles and jumping into the cool summer water. We swam laps for 30 minutes a night, gasping for air and stopping here and there to listen to the awesome tunes the lifeguards were always playing. It made us feel good, we were part of the community and we felt super courageous for getting to the pool on our bike.

Then the air got colder as fall approached and swimming days were coming to an end. We were losing our motivation. Lucky for us the bike had two flat tires on our last attempt to head out. Poor thing, it was so abused. You've served us well bike, until next year. Now we're trying to get into running and I'm pretty sure the helmet will come in handy along with the use of "Bebop!" when jogging up behind someone. Love that roomie o' mine. We have fun.