New bike

My wife's been doing a better job of taking care of herself than I've done of caring for myself the past couple of years. While she's busy taking off the weight she gained during two pregnancies (and then a couple more pounds for good measure), I'm still lounging about enjoying beer and cigars and doing as little of that pesky "exercise" stuff as I can comfortably avoid. In all honesty, I've always hated going to the gym and when younger, I liked getting my exercise outdoors. My knees are not so good for running anymore, so I decided I'd go with a bicycle.

I figured that'd be easy enough... After all, when I was a kid, I told my dad "I need a bicycle." He'd ask me what kind, and I'd reply with something like "A ten speed." Christmas would come and magically a ten-speed bicycle appears next to the tree. Hot damn. Recently, I got my son a bicycle, using the same basic logic. "What does he need?" Hell if I know. Something with training wheels, maybe?

I consider, briefly, calling my dad and telling him I want a bicycle just to see if that type of request would be something one could carry on making for an entire lifetime. After deciding against that, I went off in my own little Leonard Nimoy way in search of a bicycle.

I go to a bike shop, figuring that this would be where I could find a bike. Lo and behold, there were dozens of them... all of them very different. I am given choices of road bikes, cruisers, mountain bikes, and hybrids. They ask about the material I want the bike made of (while most are made of metal, they apparently make a carbon fiber composite jobber for the type of guy who needs to maintain a low radar cross-section during his afternoon ride) and the type of suspension. They ask about kind of brakes (disk brakes on a bicycle are an option, now?). They ask where I'm going to ride it. They ask how much I'm willing to pay for it. Suddenly, buying a new bicycle is as easy as buying a new car, and in some cases apparently could be just about as expensive.

I never imagined that it'd be this type of work just to get a bicycle to try and work off a few pounds. I think I need a beer and some time to relax after that much effort. God help me once Iactually get to ride the damned thing.