My New Wheels

They say you never forget how... But we'll see. It's been ages.

I haven't ridden a bike in a long time, either. Ba-dum-pum!

I gave up on the used-bike idea and bought this Schwinn from Wal-Mart today. Maybe the virtuous act of giving up driving in favor of riding a bike for my daily commute will erase the sin of shopping at the Evil Empire.

Last time I bought a bike, I was nineteen, and had fallen deeply under the influence of a 6'10" hardcore biking maniac named Chalo. We went to Freewheeling and got me a Miyata TripleCross hybrid (whatever happened to hybrids?) which Chalo paid for a large part of, then customized by adding a longer seat post and handlebar stem to compensate for my short torso. He himself rode a very large purple Cannondale mountain bike with, I don't know, special wheels with a whole bunch of extra spokes in them for added strength, and special custom shifters, and a special saddle, and all kinds of fancy extra doodads I once could have told you about in gruesome detail. He also wore a Bell helmet with a plastic daisy bobbing cheerfully on a wire from the top. He was so cool, he had once totaled his dad's Delorean. Who do you know that can make that claim?

Alas, very shortly after Chalo and I broke up, my Miyata disappeared one night from my living room. One perhaps wonders about that. But even now, though I'm clearly a piss-poor excuse for a biker, I feel a little dirty buying a bike from Wal-Mart - with (shudders delicately) a kickstand. And forget about the clipless pedal system, it doesn't even have toe clips!

But at least I didn't get a Huffy.