Well-bikey check-up

The 31st marked 30 days since I purchased my bike. As part of their new bike sales, Bicycle X-Change includes free 30-, 60- and 90-day inspections, so I rode mine down to the Douglas store to have them look at it.

When I told the Mrs. about this, she said, "Awww--like it's a baby?"

Hence the title of this post.

Anyway, something unusual had happened early last week while I was out errand-running that I learned more about on the 31st: just as I was about to turn right off a street, the handlebars suddenly slipped down to their lowest position. I was so startled that I nearly lost control, but I managed to get out of the street safely. When I got home, I couldn't figure out how to re-adjust the handlebars as they had been, so I thought, The 31st is coming up, and the bike is certainly rideable. We'll figure it out then. Turns out, the bolt that holds the handlebars at the angle had fallen out, something that the service guy says rarely happens. He told me I'd need to tighten it up every 5th ride or so.

I'm learning, I'm learning.

Actually, the relative simplicity of the bicycle-as-machine is such that I do want to be more savvy as regards its maintenance. Otherwise, I'm every bit as much at the mercy of my ignorance of it as I am of my car that requires not a human being but a computer to diagnose its ailments.

Say what you will about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as a work of philosophy, but as a meditation on how it's really kind of weird how we've become disconnected from the very machines that humans have after all designed, Pirsig seems right on to me. The nifty thing about bicycles is that they truly are elegant machines in their simplicity; and even someone like me, someone not especially mechanically-inclined, can appreciate that to the point that I want to do more than just sit back and admire that elegance but tear my hair out when something goes wrong with it. So, one of these days I'll get my hands on a Fuji maintenance manual and occasionally provide y'all with some grease-monkey posts.

Anyway. The bike is otherwise fine, you'll be pleased to know.

In which your correspondent talks a bit about his bicycle

Image found here.

My bloggy friend Cordelia of The Phenomenal Field (who, you know, apparently has a life--which is unfortunate because otherwise she would probably post more frequently than she does) recently posted on her decision to bike-commute to work and how, according to Bike Commuter's gas-saving calculator, she'll end up saving much more money than she had thought. There's also something in there about getting "shapely calves" in the bargain, too. Now, like me, she seems to be seeing bicycles everywhere she looks. Cordelia is not a Wichitan, but after visiting this blog she e-mailed me to suggest that visitors here might be interested in learning how I had come to decide to buy my Fuji Crosstown 3.0 (pictured above).

Well, maybe you will be.

Once I'd made the decision to buy a bike, I started looking at how much money I had for this enterprise. Not much. So, I oh-so-naïvely asked friends what kind of decent bike they could recommend for, say, $200. That seemed reasonable to me; everywhere I looked, it seemed, I was seeing $85 bikes from Wal-Mart--how much more could a good one cost? They alternately a) laughed in my face and b) said I'd only find good used bikes for that price--and to be wary of buying a used bike. But whether a) or b), they also all said: Go to a reputable shop to buy it. That, in retrospect, was the best piece of advice anyone has yet given me about all this.

By the end of June, I'd done some extra teaching and had a little extra money; I'd also done a little research and learned that Fujis had a good reputation for building solid bikes that didn't also cost one's first-born. So, when I walked in the doors of the east-side Bicycle X-Change and said, "I'd like to see a good in-town bike for around $300" and the dealer said, "Here's what you're looking for" and walked over to the Crosstown, it felt right.

I should say here that I'd not regularly ridden a bicycle since high school, so having a bike that felt responsive but sturdy was important to me. So, in addition to the Crosstown I test-rode a rehabbed touring bike, but it felt so light that it startled me. So, the Crosstown it was. No regrets, either.

I got lucky--I know this. I should have researched more than I did; on the other hand, though, a limited budget has a way of defining one's horizon. That's why the advice about seeing a dealer is the single-best piece of advice I can pass on to you, too. That, and thinking about what you want and need in a bike--psychologically as well as physically.