My Trusty Bike

Me and my bike.  Photo taken by Dan.

I have had my bike for 25 years.  My Dad bought it for me when I was in college so that I wouldn't have to walk everywhere.  It has seen times when I rode it a lot, and times when it spent the whole year hanging in the garage.  A few years ago I had it fixed up, but in the beginning of the year it was in bad shape again and so I went out with Derek and got a new bike.  My old one is a Schwinn and so was the new one.  It was white and red.  It had a little bell, and a rack on the back, and fenders.  I rode it around the store for a while and then bought it.  Of course, when we got it home we discovered that its gears didn't work, it's brakes were always on and were impossibly hard to adjust, and the handle bars were installed off center.  I took it back and was assured that it could be fixed in about 40 minutes.  I decided to get my money back.

After more looking, and lots of considering, I decided that fixing my old bike up was a cheaper option and a really good one for someone as sentimental as me.  So, I took it to the local bike shop and they put road tires on it again (I had replaced its road tires with mountain biking ones).  They replaced the rusty cables and oiled the chains enough that I wasn't having to work extra hard to pedal.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that my bike was fun to ride again!  I added a bike rack on the back (for snacks, jackets, or library books) and a speedometer (It's fun to know how fast you are going and how far you have ridden).  So, the bike that my Dad bought for me, and he bought me a good one, is working for me still.  Good exercise and good fun.  Thanks Dad!