So, I bought myself a new Bike over the weekend. The Companion had taken their’s to the local bike shop for a so-called beginning of the season “tune-up”, and I was “elected” to pick the bike up after the shop called, saying it was ready…
Sorry – let’s backtrack a few steps and give you some background of my bicycling history:
My first bike was a Schwinn “Sting Ray”, you know, one of those with the tall handlebars, and a “Banana” seat. I probably got this bike when I was around 9 or 10 yrs old. I looked up Schwinn on Wikipedia: The bike was a “wheelie” type, with “Ape Hanger” (also called “chopper” style) handle bars.
My second bike was also a Schwinn, this time a “10 speed Racer” – I distinctly remember the color and how I loved that color – “Chestnut Brown” – not just “Brown”, but…”Chestnut Brown”. This was probably my first ever experience with the marketing of colors (“hues”) outside of the usual Blue/Red/Green/Brown/Orange spectrum. I loved that bike – it allowed me to “go places where no-one has gone before – its five-year mission…” (oops, that’s a different story). Anyway, I probably got this around 7th grade. After consulting Wikipedia, it seems they had three different models around that timeframe: Varsity, Continental, and Paramount. I vaguely remember my bike being a “Continental”, with the “Varsity” being a 5 speed model?
My third and most recent bike (another Schwinn 10 speed racer – Blue this time, and no, I don’t remember the exact “hue” – lol), was purchased about twenty years ago – here in the Twin Cities. At the time, I was living near Lake Calhoun – about 2 blocks away, and after work each night, I would take it out and go biking around Lake Harriet, Lake Calhoun, and Lake of the Isles. After living in that wonderful neighborhood for a year, I met my (ex)wife Gail, and eventually moved back to the suburbs, but lived close enough to bike to Lake Como, so that became a favorite biking spot as well. However, once we married and moved to our home on Lake Owasso, I traded my biking activities to become a boating fanatic, and that bike soon languished in the garage.
Upon meeting the Companion, we started biking together – this time, not just around a local lake area, but we actually went on “long” (ok, longish) bike rides, i.e., for an entire day, etc. We actually went down to the Cannon Falls/Red Wing areas and biked down there a few times.
Then, I “suddenly” got “old” (aka, I turned “50”), and the poor bike languished once again in the garage, only taking it out now and then. There were probably many reasons for this, but I think I can pin point it to a couple of things – and I’ll only mention one of them here: The seat. I just hated sitting on that seat.
Ok, back to present day: I’m in the bike store, picking up the Companion’s “tuned-up” bike, and I start looking at the various price tags and my, oh, my, the price of bikes have certainly increased over the years – I wouldn’t call “Apple Valley Bike and Ski” an “upscale” store, but they had a few dozen bikes in the $2000-$4000 neighbor hood. Wow. I’m just a guy who now only goes biking a few times a yr, and there is no way I’m going shell out that kind of money for a bike – sorry. And, I didn’t even have “buy a new bike” on my wish list to buy someday – it seems I had just “lost” my interest in biking.
However, I continued to look around the bike store, and finally found the “poor” man’s area – bikes in the range of $400-$800 range – now this was a range I was more comfortable with (and, even $800 – to me, is a lot of money for a bike). I looked around, looking at several different models, and, even chatted up a sales guy (a kid, about 20-22 yrs old) – which as you may know, is not easy for me to do. I listened to him, and together we figured out which model best suited me, and after taking it for a test spin around the parking lot, I came back and bought my 4th ever bicycle – it’s Blue (again), and I think it has about 50 speeds – no, just kidding, it has a 27 – three sets of 9 gears.
After bringing it home that afternoon (oh crap – I forgot to bring home the Companion’s bike – no, just kidding!), I took it for a spin, going round and round the various blocks in the neighborhood, and eventually came back, tuckered out. The companion looked at the clock, and said “back so soon??” – apparently, I had only been out riding for about 30 mins. I obviously, will need many more rides to get myself back into shape before I can start doing the “longer” rides of years past.
I’ll be posting more about my bicycling activities in the near future…
