Well, I'm sorry to say that my new resolution to ride my bike everywhere has not been adhered to very well this week. Although it hasn't really been my fault, so I still have hope. Part of the problem is the triple digit temperatures we've been enduring lately. And for a girl who is Oregon to the core, well, this hot weather is not for me. I heard the weather guy say the other day that we had more 90+ degree days in June than we normally have in A YEAR! So, yeah, it's stupidly hot. And there isn't really an end in sight. Sigh. I miss the rain.But still, I was determined. Despite the wretched heat, I was going to plow on with the bike riding thing. That's what water bottles are for, right? Plus we could restrict ourselves to relatively short rides - to the library, to the museum downtown. Places we walk to all the time, except biking would give us a little bit of a breeze at least. Tuesday afternoon I loaded up the kids on their bikes, packed my bag, filled up the water bottles, climbed on and pushed off only to have something major fall off in the gear area while at the same time my seat tipped backwards, almost dumping Evie and I into the street. Humm.
Will had taken my bike out for a spin with Evelyn that morning and I was secretly glad he did it because I knew he would come home and tell me I needed a new bike. I've been saying it for ages but I think he thought I was being silly. And I'll admit that sometimes I am, but in this case, nope it's really tim, only 2 gears out of the 15 work, and something on it clicks, ALL THE TIME, and the breaks don't really stop. But you know, saving money and all, I'd kept on with it. So he did, in fact, come home an declare that I needed a new bike, in fact, I think he said something like "Why didn't you tell me it was that bad?" Uhhh.....
But I think he did something to make it worse because the seat was working just fine the day before and the gear thing that fell off, well to be honest, it may have been dangling by a thread for months and I'd never know the difference. But he definitely broke the seat. Or maybe not, I'm not the most technical of persons so who knows.
Because I was already hot and now totally frustrated I took Evie out of her seat, wheeled it over to the office window where he was working and declared "This bike sucks!" with true drama queen flair and threw it down dramatically. Although as it turns out he was in the kitchen when I did this and didn't see. When we came home from (walking) he asked why my bike was in a heap on the grass. All that drama, wasted on an empty room.
So if we want to do this bike thing, we'll be shopping for a new one for me pretty soon. Nothing fancy, all I really want is a comfy, working seat and more than two gears. In fact, I think I found one already that will cost less than replacing the gears, breaks, seat and fixing the clicky thing on my old bike. And this one has shocks on the seat, which is awesome. I don't need shocks on the wheels, but my rear end could certainly use some extra cushioning, so I'm on board. Honestly, tell me that a woman didn't come up with that one! Brilliant!