Whoever made up that asinine cliche, “It’s like riding a bicycle,” to connote a skill that we could never forget clearly didn’t do their research. Lies, I say. All lies.

I once knew how to ride a bike. I used to glide around my giant backyard on my hot pink wheels with my white streamers blowing in the wind and my pet snail Timmy resting snugly in my pink and white crosshatched basket. Eventually, the training wheels were removed as they are in every young child’s formative years, and I glided onwards with Timmy in tow.

Sometime in between Timmy’s death and the onset of puberty, I just lost interest in riding. I think I was first turned off after I saw my cousin careen off a bike and break both of her arms. And then I never even considered biking after I moved to Florida, where there’s a high chance you’ll get run over by an elderly person in a 1992 Cadillac DeVille if you cycle too far from your driveway.

The summer before I came to college, a few of my friends tried to re-teach me to ride a bike so that I could be a “real” Stanford student. Because they were so confident that I would remember how to ride the moment I got on a bicycle again, they didn’t listen to my complaints that a) I was wearing flimsy flip flops, b) we were on a sidewalk near a busy street, c) it was pitch dark out. Needless to say, when we gave up an hour later, all I had learned was that my muscle memory sucks and that I bruise really easily if I fall on pavement repeatedly.

Contrary to my friends’ concerns, my inability to ride a bike has never caused me problems at Stanford. I naturally walk way too fast. I like to interact with people. Plus, I don’t have to spend time locking and unlocking a bike, and I don’t get yelled at by that overzealous traffic dude who shouts at people when they go the wrong way around the intersection of death.

Although I don’t plan on changing my walking lifestyle, I recently realized that biking is an important skill to have under my belt, much like swimming, driving and reading chapter books — all of which I have mastered.

So I called on my friend Susan, whom I’ve known since kindergarten. If you have to embarrass yourself with someone, it’s best to choose an individual who has seen you eat paste. And pick your nose. Preferably at the same time. Anyway, Susan teaches small children to play the violin, so I knew she’d have the proper amount of patience to educate a not-so-small child in the art of bicycle riding.

On Saturday morning, we met up on the residential road on the far side of Mayfield Playfield, the smallish patch of grass across from Haus Mitt. We started at 9:30 — too early for sloshballers to gawk at me or bowl me over.

It took me awhile just to get used to sitting on the bike. Those seats really aren’t that comfortable. Then I learned the basics. Brakes, steering, etc. We went back and forth along the street for almost an hour, with Susan in front, facing me and holding on to the handles and backing up slowly as I got used to peddling.

My biggest problem was balancing. Despite my political inclinations, I kept veering right, taking poor Susan along with me. How humiliating.

A man passed by, laughed and offered some strange advice about pulling me from the back with a towel? That’s how he had taught his kids, he said. Yeah, sir, unfortunately I don’t weigh 40 pounds anymore. Thanks, though.

He actually turned out to be sort of right. I did a lot better when Susan started to lightly hold on to the back of the bike, because there was that illusion that she wasn’t there and I was, you know, actually biking. It felt like I was in that classic episode of “Full House” where Joey teaches Michelle how to ride a bike at the park. I tried to channel my inner Olson twin, but I still couldn’t quite get it the way she could.

As I grunted away, an elderly lady gracefully biked by. “You can do it, you can do it,” I whispered under my breath as I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans and glared at her enviously.

An hour and a half had passed, and it was getting really hot. Susan decided that the only thing keeping me from getting it on my own was my fear of falling. It’s high up there on that seat! So I convinced her to let me try on the grass even though it’d be harder to pedal there. She pushed me off and I was soaring. Sort of. “I’m biking!” I shouted until I fell five yards later. Susan beamed at me like a proud parent, and then we did it one more time, without me falling. Hello, Tour de France.

There is something wonderfully humbling about sucking so badly at something and then finally getting it. How’s that for an eloquent proverb? As we get older, we are sadly deprived of that exhilarating sense of primitive accomplishment that we constantly have when we are younger. I have to say, I’m glad that I forgot how to ride a bike...although my buttocks now ache every time I sit down.

Natalie Jabbar wants to thank Susan for not giving up on her. Email njabbar "at" stanford.edu if you want to sign up to teach her how to pop a wheelie.