When we traded in the two cars for the new one, I also got a bike which I am using at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am to get up to speed for using to go the three miles or so to work. Heeding Steve's warnings, I bought a bike which I would not mind being stolen from Canadian Tire, the Supercycle 1500 15-speed Men's/Boys MTB, for $109 bucks. It is blue and it goes.
What I had forgotten - in the 12 years since I sold my Peugeot LRC to Bruce for a pittance, bought five years before that from Jack Nauss's on Windsor Street in Halifax after I sold my 74 Super Beetle - is that I love riding a bike. Talk about playing games: images of bombing around on my orange Supercycle one speed banana seat bike in 1973 flood back. Using the sissy bar behind me as a carry-all, raming my baseball glove down on the top, jamming a baseball bat through it. Your lunch box slid down the handle bars where it would clunk one knee as you peddled along. Reverie stops right after the seat flips up unnoticed during a sweat-inducing 2% incline. Hello.

Comments
portland - September 3, 2003 6:24 PM
i thought it was pie day? why would somebody steal your bike from a canadian tire (and nobody ever stole mine - i put two expensive kryptons on it which meant it was easier to just steal somebody else's)?, and those banana seats never hurt our asses - why can't they put those on a mountain bike?
portland - September 3, 2003 6:44 PM
on the subject of fairs and pie day, check out home page for the grandaddy - the fryeburg fair. some good reading.
Alan - September 3, 2003 9:54 PM
Why do seats have to hurt, indeed. Why can't riding a bike be more like sitting on the sofa. It is the dictatorship of those "in training" for the fictitious race they will never go in.
On a related note, I invented the idea of the SoftMan™ competition today. A half a mile on the bike, a few cannonballs in the pool and pitchers of draft at Gritty's. It'll work.
Humblebub - September 4, 2003 6:39 AM
If you make it a 1/2 Km instead of a mile let me know when the games begin!
Alan - September 4, 2003 7:41 AM
I quickly popped out to the consultants last night and renamed the SoftMan™ as the PuddingMan™ competition and created the adult novice class for which we have received so much interest: 0.5 km on a bike (banana seat required), two cannonballs (min. - extra points for extended splashing), laying around and off to the tavern for pitchers of ale. Sugar and nicotine enhanced performance supplements not barred.
Humblebub - September 4, 2003 10:57 AM
I am definaltely in. Never mind this 'outward bound shit' - lets rock.
portland - September 4, 2003 11:54 PM
no no no. i'm an iron man....but in my own secret way.