Size matters.

Well, maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t.

Either way, we seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time wondering about whether it does, or it doesn’t, and why it matters, especially when we are twelve.

What I do remember is that, size or not. Ratios mattered. And I mean gear ratios.

My first “real” bicycle only had three.

Gears.

It was a beautiful blue bicycle, and it had three gears.

But, they were Sturmey Archer, and so not Derailleur.

And, at the age of 12, all I wanted was Derailleur.

Not Sturmey Archer.

So, when, after much pleading and yearning and moaning and whining, my trusty blue Raleigh was upgraded by a slick and shiny Puch.

It was Austrian, not from Birmingham.

Imagine, my excitement, yellow and green frame, white taped curving handlebars, not blue not boring, a racing machine.

My heart beating fast, I ran my fingers over those white taped bars.

My heart stopped.

What was this.

The familiar feel of a three geared machine.

So, to compensate for my lack of size, or in this case, ratios, I learned how to use my flying machine and how to swerve and stop in a flurry of dust and flying stones.

All to show the one with the blue eyes and blonde hair that, really, it’s not the size or the ratios that matter.

It’s what you can do with it.

That matters.

(For the last two weeks I have been attempting to learn how to write better. I’ve been taking part in Writing 101, an online course hosted by Michelle W from the WordPress Blogging U.

Today’s prompt was “where did you live when you were 12 years old?”. Each prompt comes with a twist. Today’s twist was ‘pay attention to your sentence lengths and use short, medium and long sentences as you compose your response about the home you lived in when you were twelve.

I didn’t want to write about where I lived when I was 12, and one day I may write about why, although back then, I think I lived in the saddle.  Of that bicycle.)

(for wordpress writing 101 – day eleven)