Choosing a Bike

            My last bicycle was stolen last summer right from my fenced-in front yard. Luckily for me, I had only spent $20 on it. The thief certainly didn’t get anything worth more than that – the chain would skip a link from time to time; the brakes were rusted and close to snapping; the headlight constantly moved; the seat was cracked and hard to sit on for more than ten minutes. I could go on and on about the bike’s problems, but it was sometimes convenient to take for short distances, like to the library and back, and I miss that. I don’t mind walking, but a bike makes more sense in certain situations.

            Tonight I am on a mission to find myself a new bike. I am visiting the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective, where I hope to choose a bike that suits me well. I am a man of simple needs when it comes to my bike: it has to be bright blue in the front which fades to black as it nears the back, and it needs a horn. The kind of horn that reminds me of what a clown’s nose would sound like if I were to squeeze it. Other than that I’m pretty easy. As long as it has two wheels, brakes, and a comfy seat, I’m set.

            I wasn’t always so laid back about the specifications of my bicycle. When I was younger, I had saved up enough money to buy my first “real” bike. I say real because I was looking at bikes with more than one gear and pedals that weren’t constantly moving with the wheels. Back then, grip shifters were relatively new and I had to have them. The normal push button method was too old-fashioned. Soon after purchasing my bike, I found out why grip shifters weren’t necessarily the best. Every time I hit a bump, my hands would accidentally rotate the shifters and the gears would freak out.

            Another new innovation back then was goop inside the tire tube, intended to prevent flats. Any time something punctured the tire, the goop would fill in the hole. It didn’t always work and after a couple years, it simply became hard and threw off the balance of the tires. I think I originally paid something like an extra $50 for my tires to contain goop. It’s hard to tell whether it was worth it or not.

            I used to put a lot of stock in bike brands and names. Since then, I’ve learned that for all intents and purposes, a bike is a bike. If you are a hardcore cyclist, you probably don’t agree with me, but then again, our purposes for riding a bicycle are more than likely very different. As a casual rider, I will be on the lookout tonight for a bike with a big comfy seat, blue-to-black coloring, and a horn. And maybe a basket on the back. In the event that I don’t find that exact bike, I’m sure I’ll be fine with anything that gets me from point A to point B, unless it has pink streamers, of course.