Conquering Bike MS (and My Fear of Cars, Hills, and Clipping In)
By Meredith Rawls
This May, just six months ago, I got back on my bike after abandoning it for seven years. Back in 2018, when I was living in Chicago, I was hit by a car while riding to work on the west side. I landed on my head in the middle of the road, sure that I’d broken at least my hip and my arm. By some combination of luck and grace, I walked away with only a serious concussion. But the trauma stayed with me…For years, I wouldn’t ride on the road at all; only greenways and trails where cars couldn’t reach me.
Fast-forward to this spring… After a surgery in March left me with limited mobility, I was desperate to stay active. Biking felt like something my body could handle. So I made a commitment to my dad: I’d join him at the Historic Bike MS ride in New Bern, a weekend-long, post- Labor Day bike event he’s done more than 15 times with his cycling team, Team CBC, whose whole purpose is raising awareness and funds for Multiple Sclerosis.
That commitment meant I had to face my fear of road riding head on. If I wanted to train for a 100-plus-mile event, I needed to get back on actual roads. So I nervously pulled my stepmom’s hand-me-down bike out of the shed…only to find the chain completely red with rust. I took it to a recommended bike container near Centennial Campus to see if it could be revived- and that’s how I found the Bike Library which opened up to me a whole new world of community cycling. It has been a gift in more ways than I can express!
This summer, I learned the art (and chaos) of clipping in on a road bike. My dad and I logged serious miles on the Crabtree Creek Greenway and in Umstead. I finally dared to join group rides, realizing that I needed more frequency and training than a once a week long ride with dad. Somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened: setting a goal to ride Bike MS actually helped me fall in love with cycling. And at the same time, I was healing- emotionally and physically- from that old trauma every time I got back on the saddle.
After attempting the hills of the Jubala ride once and only once, I was thrilled at the thought of riding along New Bern’s flat coastal roads, even if it meant 100+ miles. Training for bike MS and braving Raleigh’s hills revealed very clearly that to be in “bike shape” is very different from being in “hill bike shape.”
