more bikes, shifting gears

I think I've seen them all: Raleighs, KLS or KHS, Trek, Schwinn, you name it. I've been to all the bike shops. One bicycle purist told me the bike I am interested in is little more than efficient walking. It is an UPRIGHT bike, meaning you don't lean into the wind (or rain, as the climate dictates) to ride. You sit up like the Wicked Witch of the East. I've test driven Cruiser after Cruiser. I love the Trek Calypso men's bike. The KHS aero6 is cool too. I like men's bikes over women's. I'm not sure why, but I suppose it has somehthing to do with the fact that I always rode bicycles handed down to my by my older brothers. Girls bikes are for wussies. I'll choose one this weekend. I put my old bike in the Thrifties. Watch for it.

I've never understood gears. I've mentioned this before, I know, but necessity is the mutha.... riding up Division has made a believer out of me. Last night as we rode up to Hawthorne to return a movie, we traded bikes and I finally got it. It was just like algebra: I didn't get it for so long. I took algebra in college because I had to, and because I was still loaded as a rat during most of my classes, I wrote answers on tests like, "X+2= Apples and oranges," and "You can't multiply letters," and, "Tilt." It was the only C in my transcripts, and only then because the instructor appreciated my sense of humor and inability to abstract. But then one day, many years later.... I was visiting a class with a friend and the instructor handed out a pop quiz. I took it. Suddenly, the algebraeic tumblers fell into place and I could do it. The equations seemed like tiny little recipes only when completed, you get numbers and letters instead of a cake. I took that experience with me into the much-feared Statistics, and flew throught it with an A, although I think I took it pass/no pass.

So I rode back from Hawthorne, shifting and gliding all the way. It was so easy, in fact, that I don't think bike riding will do my ass any good at all.