I have a new bicycle. I’ll give you the technical specifications: It’s white.

I’ve managed to go almost my entire adult life without any exercise at all, not counting the time I ran in the local St Patrick’s Day 5K race. I figure any exercise that begins with losing a bet and ends with an ambulance and two weeks of bed rest doesn’t really count.

But now that I have a bike, I think I’ll be getting a lot more exercise. It’s already started: I completely wore myself out putting air into the tires. I wish someone had told me you could buy a pump for that.

One other thing I know about my new bike is that it has way too many gears. If my car only needs 4 gears, including reverse, why does my bicycle need 21 gears? NONE of which are reverse, I might add.

You change gears by pushing buttons, which is normally something I’m very good at (I’ve worn out three TV remotes this year alone). Unfortunately, I have no idea what gear I’m in at any given moment. Which is alright, because I also have no idea what gear I’m supposed to be in. I just randomly push buttons until pedaling becomes so difficult that I just sort of tip over.

I got my bike from a guy I work with. He has moved on to a much better bike. By better, I mean “incredibly expensive”. I think his latest bike cost around a thousand dollars. My first three cars added together cost less than that. And one of them even had a working air conditioning unit. Ok, technically the AC only worked during the winter, but still…

I had a little trouble finding a bike helmet that would fit me (Kids – ALWAYS wear a helmet. Preferably, on your head) . Most headgear is built to accommodate a somewhat rounded head, whereas my head is roughly square shaped. Which has certain advantages. For example, I could stand on my head at a very early age. And I always have a handy place to set a cup of coffee.

My bicycle’s seat is another sore area, so to speak. It’s surprisingly difficult to get a good banana seat for a modern adult bicycle. The seat on my bike is only a couple of inches wide, and very hard. This is supposed to be a state of the art seat built for comfort over long distances. All I know is, after a short ride two days ago I’m still walking funny. And it’s probably a good thing I’ve already fathered children.

My bicycle has a computer, too. That was the clincher for me. If there’s one thing I like more than buying things I don’t need, it’s buying things I don’t need that have computers. It’s not exactly a Pentium III, but it does tell me how fast I go (not very) and how far I’ve gone (not very). If only I could get it to play MP3s and maybe do email.

And if I could get the bike computer to pedal for me, that would be good too.

by Joe

Shockley, May 27, 2000