mikao's world

Two-Wheeler

So, as I previously mentioned, I bought a bike on the weekend. It's a Raleigh Summit, a silver 18-speed mountain bike, which is pretty much exactly what I wanted. Except I had to buy a water bottle holder because one didn't just come with it. And I got a maroon bike helmet that matches the trim, because apparently maroon is a very popular colour for bike helmets this season. And it's cooler that the aqua-coloured one I have at home.

I had gone bike shopping/perusing a couple of times, and had been watching the flyers for deals because I'm poor. But have you noticed, there are a lot of weird bikes out there these days... shocks, and weird frames, and a bazillion of different types of brakes? I just wanted a regular-old-kind of bike. Like the kind I have at my parents' house, except not with a distinctly early-90s dark purple with metallic blue paint spatters paint job trying-to-be-cool with a name like Conestoga. Conestoga, for those who do not know, means "COVERED WAGON". Yeah, that's right, it is a bike named after a covered wagon.

Anyways, Saturday I went to the local Canadian Tire and was testing out a few bikes, and all the employees were just passing me by not offering any assistance. I think this is because I look like I'm 12 and not nearly 27, and thus why would they offer a kid assistance? However, there did happen to be this fellow bike shopper who started asking me questions about the bikes I was trying. And had I been to the cycle shop downtown? And blah blah blah. It was kind of creepy. So, I kind of went around the corner and... disappeared. I went to Wal-Mart instead and looked at bikes there, but there was only this weird one that only even remotely fit me, with both front and back shocks, which I found out I am not particularly fond of. And I also went and looked at Home Hardware, but they didn't have any bikes in that particular store, even though their flyer said they did. And I didn't think I was hardcore enough to even step inside the bike shop downtown.

So I went back to Canadian Tire, and Creepy Guy was gone, and so I looked at a few more bikes and tracked down the kid who is supposed to be in charge of the bike department, and then walked out with my newly purchased bicycle, reading for biking endeavours of all kinds.

When I was in junior high and high school in Manitoba, I used to go biking all the time. And the summer I spent in Maine I biked all over the place every day off I had. And the summer I spent in Illinois the youth pastor I worked with got me a bike and I used to bike to the mall all the time. And then one year at school one of my roommates had a bike and I'd bike a lot. And whenever I went home in the spring I'd bike. And summers in Ontario I'd always bike to town from camp. I love biking.

But I have never really biked up hills before, except maybe in Maine, but the hills there are a lot more r o l l i n g that the hills here are. The hills here are KILLER. Seriously, I almost died.

Saturday I went for a couple of test drives, and then I noticed the tires seriously needed some air. So I got an airpump because I didn't want to load the bike back into my car and take it to a gas station. Except apparently you shouldn't skimp on airpumps and the $12.97 version might have worked instead of the $9.96 version I got that just deflated the tires even more.

So I had to load my bike up and return the airpump and pump the tires up at a gas station anyways.

Funny thing happened on the way to and from the gas station. I saw Creepy Guy. Biking. He was riding a shiney new weird red bike with shocks and a bizarre frame, and was wearing a maroon track suit. He biked by my house. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to escape him in the future because he can bike up hills a lot faster than I can I'm sure.