Fairy Blog - Ronan and his First Bike

Ronan got his first bike when he was six years old. The bike was a golden flecked, hunter green sting ray with a banana seat and ape-hanger handle bars. He got the bike for his birthday, which also happened to be his last day of kindergarten.

Knowing he didn't know how to ride the bike just yet, he walked his bike to school. He didn’t want any help from his parents to learn how to ride. This was something he wanted to learn how to do by himself. 

After school let out and he was officially promoted to the first grade, Ronan climbed onto his sting ray in the parking lot. He grabbed the handlebars as he straddled the frame and began waddling himself forward to gain momentum.   After a few strides, he jumped up and landed on his banana seat.  But his feet accidentally slammed onto the pedals forcing the bike to skid to a stop, which made him fly completely off the bike.

His new first grade teacher called out to him from the classroom window, “Ronan, you can’t do that. You can’t ride that bike yet.”

Dusting himself off, Ronan pulled a couple pieces of gravel out of his elbows. He tore his school pants but he didn’t care because it was the beginning of summer. It was at that moment that he realized that he didn’t really understand what the bike was doing under him.  Ronan seemed confident that if he could just understand how the bike works then he’d easily be able to ride it. 

He flipped the bike upside down and decided Ms. Trotter was wrong about him.  "I can and will ride this bike," he said grunting to himself.  He revved up the back wheel by rotating the pedals as fast as he could with his right hand. In a quick flick of his wrist, he slammed the pedal backwards causing the wheel to immediately stop moving. 

“Ahhhh,” he said while releasing the pedal.  

Ronan figured out that pedaling backwards makes the wheel stop moving.

With a new appreciation of how his Sting Ray worked, Ronan took off in one sweeping motion by flipping the bicycle onto its wheels by the handlebars while outright sprinting forward.  He leapt mid stride and landed perfectly on the oblong seat. Riding down the school’s long hilly driveway, Ronan found his balance and his feet found the pedals.  He made it to the bottom of the hill and then slammed on his brakes making a perfect crescent moon design in the dust kicked up by his speeding trick.  

That’s how Ronan learned how to ride a bike and that’s the day his bike fairy was born.  TL burst into being midway down the hill in the wake of dust, laughter, fear, amusement, and serendipity.

Fairy Blog...

Ronan was the first child of Daniel and Sarita Jason. The Jasons owned a bike shop in St Andrew. Every evening, the family of three would close the shop and take a bike ride through the park.  Waiting till Ronan was at least two to start putting him on the bike with them, Daniel made sure he knew how to tuck and roll if there was a fall.  Sarita on her cruiser bike and Daniel on his mountain bike, Ronan rode the chariot strapped to his dad’s bike while they zoomed along the trail. Bike rides were his absolute favorite.

He doesn’t remember the day he first met bike fairies.  It was more like he always knew they’re around.  Bike fairies following his parents through the park tickled Ronan’s face and tussled his hair while he sat mesmerized by their shimmering radiance.  The fairies would gather all around his seat in unique and unlikely ways to relax, which was right above the wheel making for a perfect resonant listening zone, as they rode through the park.

Reba and Trudy, both bike fairies, lived on the bike pedals of Ronan’s parents. Reba lived on Sarita’s left pedal and Trudy on Daniel’s right pedal.  Reba and Trudy met around the same time that Ronan’s parents met.  Daniel and Sarita’s first date was a bike ride on the country road. Not too long into the ride, Reba and Trudy introduced themselves.  Soon after they realized they knew a lot of the same fairies and shared a lot of the same interests, including singing fairy spoke songs. It was a wonder they hadn’t met before then. They’ve been friends ever since that bike ride five years ago.

When Ronan came along, Reba and Trudy showered him with fairy kindness. They whispered bike fairy songs in his ears, showed him magic tricks, did acrobatic tumbles, tickled, played with and loved him every single day. 

Sarita and Daniel relished in how joyful Ronan seemed during and after their rides.  As he grew, they got bigger and bigger safety seats to fasten to Daniel’s bike...

5 Commuting Tips from a Regular Bike Rider

I'm inspired to share a few tips that have helped me navigate the roads of New Orleans. Often biking is so amazing in this city, though sometimes it is hard and scary.  I've learned a few key things that have helped me stay safe and focused while being in the latter situations.

1. Always have lights on your bike at night. Being seen is a good thing; be seen!
2. When navigating potholes, engage your core and lighten your grips on the handlebars to reduce impact to your wrists and shoulders.
3. Pay attention to the other road users around you.  Listen for cars and try to anticipate for how the drivers will navigate the situation.
4. At busy intersections, pause for at least two seconds before crossing an intersection after the light changes to green.  Avoid cars running their red light by pausing briefly before going.
5. As much as possible, try to learn the traffic signal patterns for major intersections that you frequently cross.  Stop at red lights; especially if you are not familiar with the light cycles for that crossing.

Words on the Train

This is a poem I recently wrote while reminiscing about growing up in New York in the 90s and spending time at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Big up to ALL the slam and spoken word artists that I watched spit truth bombs in Alphabet City.


Words used to flow outta me
Riding on the trains through the city.
It was like the blur of the passing subway lights
Rhymes and verses streaking past my mind's eyes.
I felt angry, charged, confident that my words were daggers
To the egotistical hubris of New York's vanity.
My observations shed light where no New Yorker dared to stare
My wit brought the non-believers to their knees
Begging to over-stand how they'd been so blind,
So unwilling to validate the fallacies around them.
Those words danced with the graffiti spun into oblivion
Finding their home among the trash piles deep
In the bowels of that city.
It was all said before -
To different beats, cadences, inflections, tones and emphases.
Not a whole lot has changed but those words seem to stay the same,
Carved into the tracks etched into the memory of that city.
Those words stayed there, they they don't visit me anymore.
They found their place, dancing their way out of me
To their rightful owner -
New York City.