Unbalance

unbalance
verb, transitive. To put out of balance, specifically to derange mentally.

John raised the garage door and squinted into the gloom. His son’s bicycle was in the back, in a corner, suspended from a hook in the ceiling. Ruefully, he looked over the row of items between it and him. He briefly considered giving up on the plan to cycle for exercise this morning, then thought of what his doctor had told him two months ago and stiffened his resolve. He needed to do this, in order to keep high blood pressure and diabetes at bay. Besides, Rick was waiting for him.

After backing the car out of the garage, John had little trouble reaching the bike, lifting it down and wheeling it out onto the driveway. He straddled the seat and lifted his feet while examining the tires. They bulged outward a little; not enough to indicate a need for air. He glanced back into the garage. He would have to rearrange it later, in order to make it easier to get the bike in and out. That was okay. That, too, would be exercise. He faced forward, leaning on the handlebars, and prepared to ride a few doors down the street to Rick’s house.

He felt paralyzed all of a sudden. How long had it been since he rode a bike? Ten years? Twenty? Would he remember what to do? He stared at the pavement before him, breathing long and deeply. It would be okay. They said that you never forget how to ride a bicycle, and he recalled that there were summers when he was a child when he must have spent as much time riding one as he spent on foot. The thought was reassuring. A quick check left and right to make sure no traffic was coming, and he pushed off.

He took the turn from the drive onto the street so slowly that he unbalanced for a moment, then he was going straight again and stopped wobbling. Speed was part of the trick, he remembered. A little more momentum would stabilize you on a bike.

There was a slight uphill grade between his driveway and Rick’s. John pedalled more confidently, shifting up one gear. Down the street, he saw Rick coast down his driveway and stop at the street. Then, Rick leaned over and appeared to be looking at the rear derailleur on his bike. John continued up the gentle slope until he was next to Rick and halted. “What--did you leave it in the top gear?” he asked.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.