When did bicycles get so expensive? I recently decided I wanted to cycle, and checked out the actual retail prices of ladies’ bikes. It’s crazy! I just want to get a bit of exercise, not transfer my RRSPs into a hunk of metal and rubber.
My memories of riding a bike are few, although I know I did it regularly. I vividly recall the dread I felt when I accidentally held my glasses case open as I bumped and nearly tumbled through a construction zone, only to arrive home with no glasses. Even worse, it turned out that the optometrist had prescribed them needlessly! I wouldn’t really need specs for several decades.
I gave up cycling while living in Toronto, for obvious reasons. Once, in my thirties, I went mountain-biking with my third cousin and a friend of hers who rented such bikes to unsuspecting tender-foots. Their advice? Don’t look at the trees or off the trail. Where you look, you will go. Sure enough, I tested the theory by mistake and went ass-over-teakettle down a mucky hill and into a tree. The next day, my upper thighs vibrated like a tuning fork. Best one-day workout I ever had. Never did it again.
In recent years, I’ve been motorcycling, which gives you the illusion of a workout while you sit on your (ever expanding) butt cheeks and experience the world up close. Now that I’m taking a break from that type of biking, I’m thinking about going back on the people-powered two wheels, but I don’t want to be thought of as one of “them”. You know them.
They insist on traveling two-wide down a narrow road, forcing vehicular traffic to queue up behind them. They’re the ones who disobey the rules with a sort of, “I dare you to hit me!” kind of attitude. The ones who zoom up behind old ladies on the sidewalk and deke around them without warning. They’re not most cyclists, but they’re enough of them. I promise I won’t become one. But first, I need to find a bike that costs less than the GDP of Bermuda, so I can also afford a helmet.