I just got the sweetest effing bike I have ever come across in my entire life.
It just fell in my lap. No Craigslist browsing or begging. No shopping around for used bikes and price-comparing. I needed it but I didn't want it (at least, not as much or for as long as Joanne has). In fact, it was only after consulting with both the Bike Shop (Centreville) and Bull Run Bicycles (Manassas) that I was even actually considering buying a new (...used) bike instead of just replacing the brakes on my hardly-used Huffy bike that has been with me since I was in middle school.
I didn't go to Goodwill looking for bikes. I went looking for khaki pants (and maybe shoes and blouses, because I always end up getting them without expressly shopping for them) for work. It was only because I was considering getting those bookshelves for the library that I've been meaning to get that I even ventured out of the soft goods.
And there it was. Adult-sized bicycle. Looking functional. Not quite like my magenta bike in build--which could have been a deal-breaker, but it ended up being a deal-maker. On the middle rod it read: "FUJI."
Fuji... just the day or two before Joanne had mentioned the name, trying to get my blessing to buy a $100 Fuji bike off of Craigslist because they're "really expensive" and usually go for something like $1000 (or some other high number. Maybe $400. It was just seemed a lot to me at the time). So I was thinking of Joanne but it was me--I really wanted it. Like I want an Italian silk dress no matter how it looks or fits. Like I want a Banana Republic blazer or chemisier from Lord and Taylor no matter how outrageous the print is.
Chrome. Gushy handlebars with another set of "advanced" blue handlebars for when you need to get down and athletic. Had an vintage-like charm to it. Maybe not 1970s like Amanda's solid-rubber-wheeled antique ride, but definitely not 2010's. All the essential parts seemed to be present and intact.
I went through the trouble of relinquishing my ID and maneuvering awkwardly into unwieldy double doors and around post-Saturday-yard-sale truck beds to try it out in the parking lot. I almost fell and I might have injured myself. It was way too tall. But there was a heavy, metal, out-of-the-ordinary attachment screwed on at the saddle keeping it there at its too-tall height. Anyway, for $35, if the metal attachment didn't come off or the frame didn't fit Joanne, it would fit whoever would appreciate a Fuji that retails for $hundreds, right?
It was like fate that I'd resorted to driving my mom's bulky van that day, empty, waiting for this brilliant silver bike with blue handles.
Bringing it home was something else.
Unlike my impression of how I imagine intimate relationships to progress, the more I got to know it, the more wonderful things I found out about it: the saddle was clean and cushy and Fuji, too. Changing the gears gave my fingers the same sensation as typing on an old, clackety typewriter. Adjusting the saddle required no tools: only a flick of a pressure-fastened clutch and swoosh!--tall to short. There were similar flicky appendages on the front wheel, and back: quick-release levers (the kind that all the pros off the Vienna W&OD have... that's how they do it)!
Took in my baby today to Bull Run Bicycles for her check-up, vaccinations, oil, adjustments, etc. Can't wait to bring her home!
Sunday, September 11, 2011
It's me in every way (story to follow)
I came here to write about the rollerblades and ended up reading old blog entries from 2008. I can't believe I wrote those. I was such a good writer. Writing definitely peaks at early 20s. And yet, I remember reading (probably in 2008) stuff I'd written in middle school and not recognizing who that exquisite writer was. Maybe the peak is 12, 13. But I guess science or history would say it's somewhere in between. I'm pretty sure Rimbaud, Voltaire, Socrates were teenagers when they were in their prime. 17, 19, 16 or something (Voltaire, then, was right if I'm being self-affirming).
Anyway. Let me start again.
Rollerblades. This is actually an entry that has been a long time coming: I got them several weeks ago and have been using/exercising/gotten beat up by them up until I got my new (used) bike (story to follow).
I think my perception of Patti, the woman who gave me the rollerblades is impossibly connected to the actual Patty. I mean, I don't know what I thought she would look like. I definitely knew she was a micro-managing, perhaps a little desperate and always too eager in her sales and her life. She sounded like a woman who knew what she wanted and seemed so assertive to the point of vulnerability. I don't remember what I thought she'd look like.
But I think the person I met fits in well with the person I thought I was going to meet. Tall, dyed blonde hair, wearing a blouse from another decade but not in a dumpy way. In a trying-make-an-impression kind of way. Like her demeanor didn't make you question what she was wearing. An overcompensating dark-colored "van" (that's what she called it) SUV.
I arrived a good 30 minutes later than expected; we were to meet in front of the CVS and there were 2 CVS's in Herndon that could have been the one she was talking about and I didn't want to call and confirm (of all the calls she gave me, I only made or returned 2, maximum. I'd've been happy to text, but she didn't).
It's a strange thing, when you meet someone in the parking lot for a Craigslist exchange. You're both just sitting in your driver's seat, peering around the parking lot looking for someone with the same expression of... sketchiness. I pulled into a spot right next to a guy attending to his car (the CVS was next to an AutoZone) and I just thought at least I was only as sketchy as he was (I think an open hood in a public parking lot is too revealing).
Patti brought out the rollerblades from its still-intact box and I have to say I was expecting more. I had 2 other potential rollerblade vendors that had aerodynamic fit for women and reassuring lace-ups in addition to the buckles. This one only had buckles. She demonstrated how these (great!) blades adjusted to your foot size. She numerated other tech specs and I knew when I tried on the rollerblade that I couldn't refuse her eagerness, as eager as I was to almost (almost!) ask if I could just pay $20 and not the $25 she was requesting. I just didn't have the heart.
She said that her son stopped rollerblading because of an accident. "He didn't know what he was doing." I was thinking like the independent, adult person I was and chuckled, "Oh, he was traumatized by the event?" So that's why he gave it up? And then she shook her head and said something affirmative, but unsurely.
I only realized later that she was (obviously?) being a mom--she was trying to tell me that she prohibited her son from rollerblading anymore. It's funny how perspective changes with age. And I wonder, was that my perspective as an autonomous individual (thinking of myself but wearing her son's size 5 blades), a naive projection? Or was it actually disbelief that a woman who carried herself as such was actually raising children, successfully and with strict boundaries?
Anyway. Let me start again.
Rollerblades. This is actually an entry that has been a long time coming: I got them several weeks ago and have been using/exercising/gotten beat up by them up until I got my new (used) bike (story to follow).
I think my perception of Patti, the woman who gave me the rollerblades is impossibly connected to the actual Patty. I mean, I don't know what I thought she would look like. I definitely knew she was a micro-managing, perhaps a little desperate and always too eager in her sales and her life. She sounded like a woman who knew what she wanted and seemed so assertive to the point of vulnerability. I don't remember what I thought she'd look like.
But I think the person I met fits in well with the person I thought I was going to meet. Tall, dyed blonde hair, wearing a blouse from another decade but not in a dumpy way. In a trying-make-an-impression kind of way. Like her demeanor didn't make you question what she was wearing. An overcompensating dark-colored "van" (that's what she called it) SUV.
I arrived a good 30 minutes later than expected; we were to meet in front of the CVS and there were 2 CVS's in Herndon that could have been the one she was talking about and I didn't want to call and confirm (of all the calls she gave me, I only made or returned 2, maximum. I'd've been happy to text, but she didn't).
It's a strange thing, when you meet someone in the parking lot for a Craigslist exchange. You're both just sitting in your driver's seat, peering around the parking lot looking for someone with the same expression of... sketchiness. I pulled into a spot right next to a guy attending to his car (the CVS was next to an AutoZone) and I just thought at least I was only as sketchy as he was (I think an open hood in a public parking lot is too revealing).
Patti brought out the rollerblades from its still-intact box and I have to say I was expecting more. I had 2 other potential rollerblade vendors that had aerodynamic fit for women and reassuring lace-ups in addition to the buckles. This one only had buckles. She demonstrated how these (great!) blades adjusted to your foot size. She numerated other tech specs and I knew when I tried on the rollerblade that I couldn't refuse her eagerness, as eager as I was to almost (almost!) ask if I could just pay $20 and not the $25 she was requesting. I just didn't have the heart.
She said that her son stopped rollerblading because of an accident. "He didn't know what he was doing." I was thinking like the independent, adult person I was and chuckled, "Oh, he was traumatized by the event?" So that's why he gave it up? And then she shook her head and said something affirmative, but unsurely.
I only realized later that she was (obviously?) being a mom--she was trying to tell me that she prohibited her son from rollerblading anymore. It's funny how perspective changes with age. And I wonder, was that my perspective as an autonomous individual (thinking of myself but wearing her son's size 5 blades), a naive projection? Or was it actually disbelief that a woman who carried herself as such was actually raising children, successfully and with strict boundaries?
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