Banana sling is to Speedo as camel vajayjay is to ________.

It is true: My old bike is back from the dead.

In the words of Jesus: Wake, Lazarus, wake! Wake and jam your purple steel self into the crotch of a middle-aged mother whose body ripples with cellulite the way a good Fudge Ripple ripples with rivulets of chocolate!

My dear friend E, who fixed Lazarus, loaned me a biking outfit.

Except it is not called a biking outfit.

It is called a kit. A kit.

As I understand it.

Which is clearly not very well.

Because the kit consisted of these counterintuitive items:

1) a hot, scratchy merino wool jersey that unzipped to my belly

2) Spandex bib overall shorts with see-through panels on the sides, all the better for spectators to tell if you are or are not wearing underwear

Whaaaaa?

E informed me that underwear is a no-no for cyclists. They just slather up with odd ointments featuring cartoon images of pink-cheeked derrieres, ooze into their performance fabrics, settle their privates onto bovine vulva replicas, hop, and go.

Um, okay.

I attempted to be a real cyclist, with Lazarus the Bike risen from the dead, as he was. I really did. E adjusted my bike seat and borrowed helmet and did not laugh at my pitiful attempt at rockin’ the kit.

I put my feet on the pedals. I forgot to move the pedals. I fell over, rolled off the bike, and hit my head on a trash can.

Jennstrong.

And so The Tour de No Pants began.

We went for a ride. We came to a full stop. I fell off Lazarus again, flattening some cellulite and a calf in the process. This time my bike was the one calling out for me to rise from the embarrassing dead of the asphalt of my own street.

I could feel the neighbors at their windows, wondering why Jenny from the block had taken up such a humbling sport — as if her own life were not humbling enough, what with the overgrown lawn, and the rotting air conditioner and gutter in the weeds next to the house, casualties of heavy icicles from last winter.

“Honey, why is Jenny wearing a maxi pad on the outside of her shorts?”

“Beats me. Looks like a Spandex vagina. Keep the kids away from the window.”

We went 1.9 miles. E encouraged me to go a tenth of a mile more, directly up a hill. I fled the sadist, went off-road and dashed through a gravel parking lot to get home. I was already fairly certain the padded bum patch had embedded itself in my uterus, and we ladies can’t take chances like that.

Still, it’s a beginning. Almost two miles, numerous photographs taken by my proud mother (“You look thinner already!” “I’m surprised you can wear those!”), and chain grease on my legs? Worthy achievements for the faint of heart and plump of saddle.

I looked in the mirror and faced my own camel vajayjay. And I lived to tell.