Zoe is a badass

I caught up with the birthday party tour in progress, and it was off to a wobbly start. Six girls, all 11 or 12 years old, and four parents were celebrating one girl's birthday with a custom sweets tour. The off-the-shelf sweets tour goes through some really pretty Santa Monica neighborhoods, but it's all street riding. These kids were not really up for it, so we designed a custom tour that kept them mostly on on the beach path, and still got them plenty sugared up. Chelsea was leading the group, and I was going to ride sheep-dog at the back and make sure nobody got left behind.

I had just finished an emergency (long story) tour for a group of eight adults, and mechanical problems had made it a little longer and bumpier than expected. A part of me was hoping Chelsea would say, "I got this, you don't need to join," but when I texted to find out where they were and if I should still meet up, she sounded a little urgent when she told me where to intercept them. Right before she hung up, she said, "We've had a situation."

Most of the group was at the donut shop where they were supposed to be, but they had gotten very spread out on the way over, and two moms and two kids were at another bakery nearby, regrouping because, they texted to someone in the main group, Zoe had "hit a car." It turned out that this was not a down-playing euphemism as we had feared – she had literally wobbled into a parked car. She wasn't injured, but she was badly rattled. She and her twin sister were just a few months younger than the other girls, but they looked years younger. They were petite and a little awkward. I related pretty hard. Zoe and one of the other girls were wary of riding down the California Incline. Kaelynn noped right out of it and walked the whole way, but Zoe rode at about the same speed as the walkers, most of the way. She dismounted before we reached the end, but she gave it a great effort, considering she hadn't wanted to get back on the bike at all. As we rode down the beach path side by side, I suggested that she might feel steadier and swerve less if she raised her gaze way out ahead of her instead of looking down. She said that was cool, and seemed to straighten out.

Our procession made its way slowly down the path, which was mid-August crowded, with more different types of electric vehicles than I remember ever seeing before. From the rear, I was keeping a close eye on the line of kids. I gasped as a dickhead on an electric scooter blew right in front of Zoe and either clipped her front tire or came close enough to make her jerk. Time froze as I waited for her bike to go down. She wobbled. And kept right on going. Her mom was riding right in front of me, and as I exhaled, I shouted, "Oh my god, she's fine!"
"What?"
"Did you see, a scooter just nearly hit Zoe!" And Zoe was chugging along, not even looking around. She'd basically gone from training wheels to bike messenger in two hours. Never underestimate the power of a little time, encouragement, sugar and sunshine!