I should warn you now that this yet another post about bikes. I've been taken over with a sort of mania, but there's also something about this that just feels right. It's like I've gone back to something I never should have let go of.
I flirted with bikes three times over the years since my childhood when riding my bike was a nearly daily occurrence. When Momma and I lived in Charlotte I was able to retrieve the last bike I'd owned in Atlanta, and I was soon riding quite a bit. Then one night, after riding home fairly drunk from somewhere, I forgot to lock the bike outside our apartment door and never saw it again.
The next bike I owned was purchased from a coworker about six (maybe, time is a blurry sensation at best for me generally) years ago. It was a cheap bike from a big box retailer. It rode like shit and sucked then and still sucks now sitting in the garage with its rusty shit wheels. I rode it around the house approximately ten total times over the course of a week and then never again. I wish I had that twenty bucks back. Fuck!
The next bike was last summer when I lived in the Fort. It was also a big box bike, but my mindset then was in a different and more biking places friendly sort of place. I used the bike a lot and then sold it to my ex landlord as I moved back to the house I'm now in. While I'd enjoyed riding the bike to work from the Fort I didn't think I'd ever ride a bike from this house to downtown assuming it was just too far.
And finally my sweet red bike that I love but might replace tomorrow. It's actually today by the time you are likely to read this as it's after eleven o'clock here. Regardless, I do now ride this bike that far often enough, and I've ridden it plenty of other places too. And I actually love riding this bike even though we're on city streets and it's made for narrow trails and dirt berms and jumps over the rough spot
Since I've begun riding the bike I've slipped into the edges of a thing that could be mania twenty years ago with no Momma, Big Brother, and The Boy. But that's not the world I inhabit, so I'll gladly enjoy the tease of it and try to be smart about stuff.
And apparently I'll start contacting some guy on Craigslist about his early '80's Schwinn with the newer "comfort" handlebars, and I'll have asked if he has the original set. And that whole tomorrow thing, yeah, I'm gonna wait for him to call and go look at the bike in the evening.
With any luck Momma will be there, because really the bike would be for her. If it's a good size for her and is in good condition and she wants it she gets it. In the day and a half since I found it and thought about her wanting a bike (she's mentioned it before) I've tried to have her in mind, but I keep looking at it. It's kinda like seeing a boy at a party that you like, but you know he's straight and interested in your friend.
It's really not like that at all, but I want the bike now that I've been looking at it and thinking about it, and I feel bad because I don't want the bike I already have to find out. That can't be good. And I still want to ride him on the street tires I might also go look at tomorrow, but then would I ever ride him how he's meant to be ridden? Would I ever take my beautiful mountain bike mountain biking?
Maybe I'll just keep buying bikes until I'm crazy early '80's Schwinn guy. Yeah, that's the best idea yet.
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