Miles Per Hour

I bought my bike for $60 on Craigslist. It's practically new. The lady rode it a handful of times and then decided to upgrade. I rode it around, handed over sixty bucks and took it home.

Since then, I've ridden it around a number of times--to my voice lessons, to the park, downtown. It's nice to have another mode of transportation. But, well, sometimes I'm not the biggest fan of my bike. I appreciate it was under a hundred bucks. I just don't appreciate all of it's other aspects.

On Monday night I was biking to a friend's kids' birthday party. Unfortunately I had the wrong park--the park I originally went to with Madie in tow was about 2 1/2 miles away. No biggy. My bike is awkwardly high--Mike won't even ride it for that reason--and I'm feeling a slight bump-bump as I ride. I make a mental note: Hmmmm...I'll need to have Mike tune it up for me this weekend maybe. The shocks aren't working so hot.

When I get to the park--2 1/2 miles away--I don't see a soul, I call my friend, she says, no it's actually at a park that's about 1/2 a mile away from my apartment in the other direction. That's kind of lame that now I have to bike 3 miles BACK to get to a place that's only a 1/2 mile from my apartment. Again though, no biggy. I turn around, and take off. Now though, I'm going in the same direction as all the men from the Lab are on their ways home. Some of them are on road bikes, others on hybrids like mine, all of them are going faster than me. I pedal a little harder to pick up the pace--I am on a road after all--and my legs are working so hard they look like something from Looney Tunes. So I'm moving quite a bit faster.

The bike however, is not.

I'm feeling very much like a six-year old who has just had the training wheels removed--yeah, I'm biking, I'm cool, I'm rockin' this road! But then a pack of eight-year olds flies by on their nice big bikes and I'm left in the dust. I want a bike like the big kids.

Is this the ultimate insult? Oh no. That would be the face of the police speed monitor staring at me as I'm the only vehicle to pass it. No big kids to bring it up to 15 or 20. No cars zooming by to make it blink a warning 37 37 37 37 SLOW DOWN 37 37 37. All there is for at least a full 60 seconds is a steady 8.