Biking Shorts - Part 3

So, I've gone on about how much I've enjoyed biking around town. Below, I address one or two of the down-sides.

The Need For Speed
The main complaint I'd share, besides how frustrating pedestrian and vehicular traffic flow can be, is how long it takes (and how hard it can be) to get from point A to point B. I'd like to make it to and from class more quickly, but my bike wasn't made or chosen for it's speed.

Besides, there was no point in choosing anything much fancier until I 1) knew I was gonna stick with this thing for the long haul and 2) knew what it was that I wanted and needed out of a bike.

So after a couple of months, I decided that, while I'll still ride Trusty Rusty (mostly a joke name, as it's pretty "chromey") on leisurely rides around the neighborhood, for my serious commutes and longer distances, I wanted something that could coast farther and go faster.

I've looked at models from $700 to $130. In the end, I went to the flea market, more or less on a whim, and found a used, ten-speed (oddly enough ol' "Trusty" is actually a 15-speed) that fit the bill. It cost a heckuva lot less than $130 and even has a few "extras."

Whim and Vigor.
Now, I picked up this particular model on a whim, like I said, which meant that we didn't bring the bike rack with us to transport the bike back home. Not only that, but to be quite blunt, a big reason why I didn't want one of those Need for Speed (N4S) bikes, in the first place, was because they are some serious nutcrackers.*

The guy selling the bike didn't have his tools with him, so I couldn't adjust or replace that hard seat. So, riding the bike home didn't seem like a great plan. We didn't have the bike rack with us, so that was out. What were we to do?

Asian sensation. We went to the "dollar store" booth around the way, bought a small set of Allen wrenches for a buck, negotiated a smaller price for the bike, adjusted the seat, and went on our way.

After taking some time to convince my girlfriend that I'd be safe, she reluctantly agreed to leave me to ride the bike the 6.4 miles back home while she drove the car, grabbed some food, and picked up some grocery items.

To my surprise, 40 minutes later, I was home. The ride was a little scary since I'm still a beginner and riding on the road requires a good deal of caution, but the seat adjustment made a huge difference and I took all the back roads I could find. My gps software (more on that later, too) kept me going in the right direction, so all was well.

It was one helluvan experience.

After this weekend, I don't feel like there's any part of town that's unavailable to me by bicycle (not that Tally's some huge metropolis). The possibilities seem to be endless.


Click below to skip to...
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4



* There ain't nuttin' nice about that hard ass, narrow seat, with the pointy black penis on the end, molestin' the hell outta your bits n pieces on a long trip back from wherever the hell!