I’m smarter than I look. I know,
there are those who say that just has to be the case, but if you’re going to
listen to everything my ex-wives say, we’re never going to get anywhere.
But I am. Smarter than I look, I
mean. Sometimes, this is more apparent than others.
Take my new bike, for instance. For
years, I rode the same bicycle, a crazy expensive carbon fiber/composite
triathlon bicycle worthy of a serious, competitive athlete. I am neither
serious, competitive nor anything remotely resembling an athlete.
But I got a good deal on the bike
several years back, so I bought it.
Unfortunately, I was involved in an
accident a little over a year ago; broke my leg. A surgeon fixed the break just
fine, but the anesthesiologist – who apparently had more important things on
his mind that day – screwed up the nerves in my leg to the point that riding
the triathlon bike was no longer an option. I just couldn’t lean over for hours
on end, peddling away, while maintaining
a position reminiscent of a peeping Tom at a keyhole.
Rather than give up cycling entirely,
I decided to buy a “regular” bike, what they call a commuter or touring bike.
You know, upright handlebars, seat big enough that there’s no danger of
actually impaling myself on the thing if I hit a bump, five speeds instead of
20.
I can’t say the idea of downgrading
to a Joe Suburban bicycle appealed to me, but I wanted to ride. And even though
I was no longer going to be cruising in state-of-the-art style, I wanted a nice
bike, something reliable, sturdy, well made.
I did a little research and settled on
a Raleigh. They’re made in England; Nottingham, in fact, ancestral home of
Robin Hood’s nefarious sheriff. Quality stuff.
Unfortunately, that quality comes at
a price. The base model for the bike I wanted runs about $600. Not expensive by
triathlon bike standards, but substantially more than you’d expect to pay at
any mega store featuring a large M, K or W in its name.
This is where my aforementioned
smarts enter the story. Rather than buy a ticket to England, I fired up my iPad
and did a quick online search. Turns out there were used Raleighs a’plenty,
close and cheap.
I bought one – a classic fixer-upper from 1965 – from a guy in Portland for $50. It
wasn’t until I got it home that I realized the gearing wasn’t quite right; it
needed work. Another $50 spent at the bike shop took care of the problem. Then
I discovered the bike’s frame was a little small for me.
The Lovely Mrs. Taylor was happy to
take it off my hands. She’s currently turning it into a rolling art project of
some sort, doing all the mechanical work herself, which impresses the heck out
of me.
I bought another bike from a Craigslist ad, this one for $90.
The second day I owned it, I took it
on a 28-mile tour. This was enough to convince me I needed a new, high-quality
seat. At my age, my backside needs all the pampering it can get.
That was $150 at the bike shop. While
I was there, I figured I should probably put on new tires and tubes, if I was
going to do any serious riding, which I was. And as long as I was getting
those, I also figured I’d get new wheels as well, since the old ones were
slightly out of true. That ran another couple hundred.
A week later, I discovered it was
just too much work peddling with the gears the bike came with, so it was back
to the bike shop, where the mechanic convinced me to also drop in a new
crankset (the pedals, front sprocket and so on). Couple more hundred.
It was at this point that I began
considering starting up a meth lab to make a few extra bucks to pay for all
this stuff. Mrs. Taylor said no to that. Also, it turns out running a meth lab
is illegal. So I had to put off further improvements for a few weeks.
Three weeks later, I bought new
brakes, genuine vintage cork hand grips, derailleur (the shifter thingy), and a
chain. By this point, I’d quit counting the cost; it was just too depressing..
It was yesterday, toward the end of a
38 mile ride on the Pere Marquette Trail, that I realized I had – with the
exception of the frame – purchased a new bike after all. And I’d saved at least
$15 over what it might have cost me to travel to England and buy a new one from
the Raleigh factory.
Now that I think about it, maybe I’m
not smarter than I look at all. In fact, Mrs. T assures me this is almost
certainly the case.
(616) 730-1414
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