The first time I ever rode a set of rollers I had no idea what I was doing. I’m not talking someone-playing-guitar-for-six-months-decides-they-are-ready-to-be-in-a-rock-band clueless. I’m talking never-driven-before-but-holding-car-keys clueless. I held on to the bike display rack in our shop, climbed on in my jeans and T-shirt and started pedaling. I continued to hold on until I was pedaling fast enough that the bike started to seem kinda stable. Things seemed to be going well for all of 10 or 12 seconds when I suddenly found myself at 45 degrees to the rollers. In a single nearly magical moment I managed to brake (yes, I hit the brakes), grab the display rack and fall so that the only thing that kept my femur from landing on the sharp-edged rack was my ever-so-firm grip on the rack.
At some point my coworkers stopped laughing.
Martha Gill, our rider in this video, will suffer no such ignominy. One suspects should practice yoga on her rollers or ride her rollers on an SUP. The amount of skill she displays in the first half of this video is a Zen mind on display. What she does when the music changes will alter what you think human beings are capable of. What this video says of Gill’s imagination for what she can achieve is what makes me hopeful for our future as a species.