If I’m found by the side of the road dead, the first suspect should be my bike seat

I’ve sweat off half my body mass in the past week and have developed a tan to rival James Brown’s, but I’m loving every minute of it. In addition to playing with my new bike, I’m training for the second annual Geezer-thon Cross-State Bike Tour, coming up the first part of August.Last week I told you about my new Wonder-Bike, normally a crazy expensive road bicycle I purchased off Craigslist.com for $95 from a woman determined to give her ex-husband (the bike was his) an apoplectic fit. Since then, I’ve put nearly 300 miles on the thing, despite the fact temperatures have been in the high 90s nearly every day.

Last year, I pedaled from Port Huron to Stony Lake, near Lake Michigan. This year I’ve planned a slightly more modest route, from Grand Rapids to Traverse City and back, about 300 miles as the bike rolls.

I’m not sure how many days it will take me. Originally, I thought about doing four 75 mile days back-to-back. Then last Saturday I did a 70 mile ride and it nearly killed me. Seriously, it took me about 20 minutes to extricate myself from the car when I got back home. My knees were stiffer than the Tin Man’s prior to Dorothy’s application of oil. My butt felt like it’d gone 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali in his prime.

The problem is the seat that came with my new Wonder-Bike. Like the rest of the bike, it’s a miracle of modern technology and French engineering; part carbon fiber, part titanium alloy…if the Space Shuttle came with bicycle seats, they would look like this thing.

And because my Wonder-Bike was designed to be raced by guys like Lance Armstrong, the seat is about the size of a postage stamp. It weighs next to nothing. In fact, if detached from the bike, it must be tied to a string to prevent it floating away like a helium balloon.

Plus, it looks really cool! So cool, in fact, that I left it on there during my recent 70 mile ride. I could have achieved similar results by sitting on a rabid porcupine.

Since my butt looks more like Homer Simpson’s than Lance Armstrong’s, the cool seat and I are not precisely simpatico. The seat is small. My bootie is big. It’s as simple as that. One good bump in the road and I’m off to the proctologist’s office. I’ve heard the outpatient procedure for bicycle seat extraction is not pleasant.

So I broke down and bought a new seat. Like my own backside, it is somewhat wide and somewhat padded. It doesn’t look as cool as the old seat, but I can perch on it for hours without whimpering like a wet kitten.

And when I get to Traverse City sometime early next month, there’s a good chance I’ll still be able to walk.

Mike Taylor’s new book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available online at mtrealitycheck.com or in eBook format from Barnes & Noble, Borders and other major booksellers. Email Mike at mtaylore325@gmail.com.

For once, I got the deal of a lifetime and I’m not going to feel guilty about it

Yesterday, I bought the bicycle of my dreams. It’s a Motobecane, a carbon fiber/titanium/aluminum alloy beauty that retails for exactly twice what I make in a year. I’ve had dreams about a bike like this, the sort of dreams which, back in high school featured cheerleaders and Swedish flight attendants. I’ll admit it; I have, in my heart, lusted after this bike. I’ve put nearly 100 miles on it already, and I still can’t believe it’s mine.

How did a lowly doofus like me come into possession of this two-wheeled miracle of French engineering and cutting edge science, you may ask. Go ahead, ask. I’m dying to tell somebody.

I found it yesterday morning, around 6 a.m. As is all too usual, I was suffering from insomnia. To pass the time until the sun came up, I opened my laptop and began paging through the Craigslist classifieds. I like to peruse the high-end bikes listed there. I knew (or thought I knew) I’d never be able to afford one. I like to look at ‘em anyway, in much the same way guys who are never going to date Irina Shayk like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue--it’s fun to dream.

I pulled up ads for Specialized, Trek and similar upscale two-wheelers, marveling at the four-figure price tags and wondering how anyone besides Lance Armstrong could justify paying $6,000 for a bicycle when my first Schwinn—purchased for five bucks at a garage sale back in 1965—served me just fine for nearly a decade. In 1976, I replaced the Schwinn with a used Fuji for the then unheard-of price of $300 and rode that for the next 30 years. So, yeah, six large seems kinda pricey to me.

But like I said, I like to look, to ogle, to…well…drool a little bit.

Then suddenly, there it was, right at the top of the listings; my dream Motobecane, one of the company’s top end models, priced at $95. Being a rational man and not given to flights of fancy, I assumed the price was a typo and the ad should have read $950, which still would have been a steal. Since the ad had posted just seconds earlier, I called the listed number, even though the sun had been up for only a few minutes. A woman answered.

“Hello,” I said. “Sorry about the early hour, but I’m calling about the bike you just listed? I was just double-checking the price. It says $95.”

“Yes, that’s right,” said the woman. “But if that’s too high, I might be willing to entertain an offer.”

Twenty minutes later I was driving up to a prearranged meeting place. She had the bike, a thing of exquisite beauty and in like-new condition; I had 95 bucks. We made the exchange. Once the bike had been transferred to my car rack, and locked securely in place (touch black! no trades back!) I couldn’t resist asking her the question.

“Why are you selling this bike so cheap?”

 “Am I?” she asked. “Is it worth more?” I told her it was. “Well, I guess I knew it was an expensive bike,” she said. “It belonged to my (expletive deleted) ex-husband. He left it at the house when he moved in with his girlfriend. He called yesterday and said to get what I could for it and send him the money. How much is it worth, exactly?”

I told her.

“Whooooo,” she whistled. “He is not going to be happy.”

She didn’t sound too concerned about Mr. Expletive Deleted’s happiness. As I drove off with my dream bike, I realized that I wasn’t either.

Mike Taylor’s new book, Looking at the Pint Half Full is available at mtrealitycheck.com or in eBook format at Barnes & Noble, Borders and most other online booksellers. Email Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

I’m afraid of what I may be doing to international relations and Boise, Idaho

 A couple weeks ago I told you about my new job, writing horoscopes for an English language newspaper in Moscow, Russia. Yes, really. Turns out the editor there liked my work so well he asked me if I’d also be willing to write horoscopes geared toward romance and business, along with a monthly “overview” horoscope. He represents several publishing concerns, apparently, all of which have readers who can’t make life decisions without a little help from the stars (not Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but Neptune, Mars and so on, though they’re not stars, but planets—even I know that much, but I digress).

After stressing to the editor yet again that I know absolutely nothing about astrology other than that there are twelve months in the year and a sign to accompany each, I agreed to take on the job.

How? you may ask. How can someone who knows nothing about astrology accurately predict the future of 10 million Muscovites? The short answer is: I make stuff up.

Are you a Pisces? Romance will blossom in August! Aquarius? Keep your eye on financial matters and expect a long trip in your near future. Leo? Too late, you will regret a recent, really, really bad decision. (My ex-girlfriend is a Leo, so I’m afraid all news is bad for the poor suckers in Moscow born under that sign, at least for a while.)

When I first started writing these things, I took it pretty lightly. I mean, I don’t believe in all this astrology hoo-hah, surely others don’t either, right?

Wrong.

Turns out some folks believe in astrology the way I believe in beer and Mexican food; it’s a religion. I discovered this fact recently after telling my favorite waitress, Crystal, about my new gig.

“You really write horoscopes?” Crystal enthused. Crystal is cute, half my age, and was obviously impressed, so I pretended it was a big deal.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, the picture of nonchalance. “For a big publishing concern in Moscow.” Now, I have no idea if any of those Moscow papers for which I’m writing has a million readers or seven. Point is, neither does Crystal.

“I’m a Virgo,” Crystal said, pushing her long, blond hair behind one ear. “What’s going to happen to me next week?”

“Um,” I said, “I dunno.”

“C’mon,” Crystal said. “You can tell me.”

“No. I mean, I really don’t know. I make it all up.”

“Ri-ight,” Crystal said. “You’re not supposed to say anything until it’s been published, is that it?”

“No, I mean I really make it up. It’s all fake.”

Crystal looked suddenly worried. “Do they all do that?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m the only astrologer I’ve ever met.”

Crystal took my order, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was thinking about the plans she’d made for the upcoming weeks; plans predicated on the alleged accuracy of whichever horoscope she peruses every night.

And so, like Crystal, I’m worried, but for a different reason. Somewhere in Moscow, there is somebody reading the nonsense I’m spewing forth each month and imbuing it with a validity and accuracy it does not in any way, shape or form possess. Someone is making life decisions based on my off the cuff BS!

Someone is leaving his wife. Someone is buying stock in K-Mart. Someone is selling everything he owns and embarking on a cross-country bicycle trip (a Sagittarius, like me. Seemed like a good idea when I was writing the prediction, but I was drinking beer and eating Mexican food at the time).

What really scares me is that somewhere, somewhere in the Russian countryside, a lone soldier, a Leo like my ex-girlfriend, is sitting in a near-defunct, Cold War era missile silo, reading a newspaper. He’s sitting on 300 megatons of radioactive death, targeted at Boise, Idaho. His horoscope reads, “Now’s the time to just go ahead and do it! Your life stinks anyway. What have you got to lose?”

I’m really hoping he’s not a true believer.

Mike Taylor’s new book, Looking at the Pint Half Full is available at mtrealitycheck.com or in ebook format from Barnes and Noble, Borders and other online booksellers. Email Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com.