I think I might need training wheels

Guess what? I got a bike. Actually, BN got it for me – he purchased it on the 4th of July, and all would be well except the reason that he was in the market for bikes at all is for the very unfortunate reason that:

His bike was stolen. It happened a week or so ago – and no, it wasn’t that he forgot to lock it up or parked it in some forsaken spot. Somebody just cut the lock, took it from the bike rack right there on campus, in the mid-morning. Can you believe it?! Eugene is seriously the bike theft capital of the world. Well, officially, it’s in the top 6 US cities with worst bike theft. And it’s the only one of the 6 that isn’t a major urban center. We have a bike registration system that’s obviously not working. Apparently the deterrents aren’t strong enough to keep people from making money stealing bikes and reselling them on Craig’s List. It’s a crying shame. BN got his bike, practically for free, secondhand from his stepbrother. So under other circumstances, I’d say, if he’s getting a new bike we should splurge on a really nice one. But here it’s hard to get excited about purchasing an expensive bike that could be randomly stolen at any time!

So, BN’s in the market for a decent second-hand bike. Hopefully he’ll find one soon so he’ll be able to begin riding to school again. Also he’s going to need to give me remedial bike-riding lessons because I haven’t ridden a bike since I was a teeny tiny teenager.

One issue is that we live on top of a hill. So going down is scary (for me, a cautious re-beginner) cause it’s so steep, and coming back up is intimidating because you pretty much have to walk it. Otherwise, I’d be stoked on my new greener lifestyle – I can ride to the grocery stores, the copy shop, the bank, the yarn store, the post office, the church, the ladies’ lunch, my friends GC or LL… Think of all the gas I’ll save. Except for the hill issue. Well, I’ll keep you posted. Next time you see me I may have hugely oversized calf muscles from pumpin it up the hill all the time on my new purple mountain bike.