Bicycles still hate me
Jun. 14th, 2008 03:26 pmApparently when I heard Wheelworks say "it will be ready on Friday" what they meant was "you can pick it up after 5PM on Friday". Being too timid and lazy to drive through Davis on a Friday evening, I waited until today -- after the landlord came to repair stuff and after the trip to the Museum of Science with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
crs.
As long as I'm driving to a bike shop, I might as well bring the *other* bike that's cluttering up the basement. So I moved boxes until I could wheel it out, then hoisted it into the back of my tiny car. It didn't fit. Some twiddling revealed that the "take the front wheel off" device was more complicated than it looked. But I prevailed!
The car being tiny, I managed to find legal parking at Wheelworks. But then I had to put the front wheel back on. Guess what? Harder than it looks.
So now I'm covered in cobwebs, brick dust, and bike grease with a flat-tired bike that's too big for me, standing in a very crowded bicycle store. Have you tried to be unobtrusive and out of the way while standing in line with a too big bicycle? Doesn't work.
After ten minutes, I hand my claim check to the nice young man. Twenty minutes later he comes back with a bike, muttering apologies. It's a lovely bike -- huge and sexy and black with about a third of the spokes you'd see on a normal bike. With some trepidation I point out that it's not *my* bike. He seems unconvinced until I use my limited store of bike-jargon: "It was a Cannondale when I brought it in!" Apparently he was perfectly willing to believe that the grubby, short person standing in front of him would own a sleek black bike built for a basketball star.
Five minutes later someone agrees to take the big basement bike off my hands. For all I know it's still standing in front of the mirror display, but it's their problem now. Five minutes after *that* they take my credit card and let me leave with the Cannondale. But I'm smarter than that! Before I leave I ask them to show me how to remove the front wheel! I also ask about lowering the seat, but I need a hex key for that. I'll pick one up when I get a helmet -- maybe Tuesday.
The Cannondale is as grubby as I am. I think the seat is too high for me. I was going to straddle the bike to see how it fit, but the pedals were in the way. I know how to fix that! I kicked them backward to get them out of the way and the chain fell off. I grabbed it and put it back on; you can imagine what that did to my fingers. And then I parked the darned thing in the basement where it can't cause any more trouble.
Tomorrow we'll see if the jeans can be cleaned, or if I have a new pair of painting pants. Maybe I should have taken the black bike and sold it on ebay.
crs.As long as I'm driving to a bike shop, I might as well bring the *other* bike that's cluttering up the basement. So I moved boxes until I could wheel it out, then hoisted it into the back of my tiny car. It didn't fit. Some twiddling revealed that the "take the front wheel off" device was more complicated than it looked. But I prevailed!
The car being tiny, I managed to find legal parking at Wheelworks. But then I had to put the front wheel back on. Guess what? Harder than it looks.
So now I'm covered in cobwebs, brick dust, and bike grease with a flat-tired bike that's too big for me, standing in a very crowded bicycle store. Have you tried to be unobtrusive and out of the way while standing in line with a too big bicycle? Doesn't work.
After ten minutes, I hand my claim check to the nice young man. Twenty minutes later he comes back with a bike, muttering apologies. It's a lovely bike -- huge and sexy and black with about a third of the spokes you'd see on a normal bike. With some trepidation I point out that it's not *my* bike. He seems unconvinced until I use my limited store of bike-jargon: "It was a Cannondale when I brought it in!" Apparently he was perfectly willing to believe that the grubby, short person standing in front of him would own a sleek black bike built for a basketball star.
Five minutes later someone agrees to take the big basement bike off my hands. For all I know it's still standing in front of the mirror display, but it's their problem now. Five minutes after *that* they take my credit card and let me leave with the Cannondale. But I'm smarter than that! Before I leave I ask them to show me how to remove the front wheel! I also ask about lowering the seat, but I need a hex key for that. I'll pick one up when I get a helmet -- maybe Tuesday.
The Cannondale is as grubby as I am. I think the seat is too high for me. I was going to straddle the bike to see how it fit, but the pedals were in the way. I know how to fix that! I kicked them backward to get them out of the way and the chain fell off. I grabbed it and put it back on; you can imagine what that did to my fingers. And then I parked the darned thing in the basement where it can't cause any more trouble.
Tomorrow we'll see if the jeans can be cleaned, or if I have a new pair of painting pants. Maybe I should have taken the black bike and sold it on ebay.
