Complex Numbers

Bike

So, after several weeks of half-hearted searching, I got a bike.

I didn't want to actually pay for one, of course, especially given what my wife and I pay each month for a gym membership. The yearly fees add up to the GDP of some small countries, so piling another small country on top of that for a new bike just wasn't going to happen.

Saturday, being The Guy With The Truck, I helped my friend Pat take an old mattress and box spring to the dump. On the way back we passed a yard sale. Pat has two kids, one newborn, one a terrorist. I mean, toddler. No, I think I was right the first time. Anyway, we passed an enormous yard sale.

"See any bikes?"

"No. Lots of kids' stuff, though."

"Wanna stop?"

"Nah, I'll send my wife down here later."

I like the way Pat thinks.

"You need a bike? I've got one I'm not using," he goes on.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, too steep around here to ride it." Pat lives on the side of a mountain. Well, not really, but being a guy who designs roads and driveways I cringe whenever I drive down his road and up his driveway, both of which would make anyone curse engineers in general.

So I got a free bike. A quick glance, the equivalent of looking a gift horse in the mouth, told me it could be roadable given a bit of work - it'd been sitting in the weather for a couple years.

Eighty bucks later, I had a tire pump, helmet and some general bike maintenance materials (like lube, as I had the impression that K-Y jelly just wasn't going to do the job.)

The next day, I had the tires pumped up and the brakes kind of adjusted, and took her out for a spin. Five seconds later, there was a giant explosion, and the back tire went flat. I looked: the entire sidewall was blown out.

Back to the bike store I went, deciding to leave things like brakes up to professionals and not my rusty bike-maintenance knowledge.

A hundred and twenty bucks later, I had a bike with new tires and tubes, tuned up and with working brakes.

So my "free" bike cost me two hundred bucks.

Maybe I could get the gym to put my membership on hold for a few hours - that oughta cover it.