Posted by Jim at August 4th, 2004

I got my bike fixed last week.

I haven’t ridden it regularly in almost 10 years and probably wouldn’t have gotten it fixed now except that it’s my wife’s and my tenth wedding anniversary and Kristen wanted to spend some time riding bikes this weekend.

When I say that I got my bike fixed last week, what I really mean is that most of it got fixed last week. One key detail got left out. When I rode the bike home from the bike shop, I noticed that the chain would slip, then catch, then slip again. This would only happen in tenth gear–and even then, only if someone were riding the bike. Bearing in mind that bike shops tend to test/fix things on a stand, it would be easy to miss this particular problem.

Now that it’s fixed, I’m theoretically free to ride the bike. Theoretically in the sense that I’d love to ride it to work except that I have to drop by daycare with at least one kid in the morning. Bringing a kid (or two) while pulling a Burley through busy morning traffic strikes me as more bother than it’s worth. Not to mention finding a place to keep the trailer at work. Outside of that, I’d rather ride than drive.

Still, having the bike work again after years of disuse is a strange thing. It’s an object layered with memories of growing up in Holland (Michigan, not the Netherlands).

I look at it and think about:
–buying it with years of saved money in 6th grade
–biking to summer swim practise in middle and high school
–years of working on the grounds crew during the summer in college
–working on Padnos’ Blockcrusher (a machine that crushed engine blocks for recycling) one summer during seminary
–biking to school from middle school through seminary

At Ed’s wedding his sister Sue told a story about seeing Ed and I riding to his house after high school.

We were apparently riding right next to each other on the sidewalk. We both saw her and my sister Lisa at the same time. We both turned our heads and waved our hands at the same time.

Unfortunately, our ways diverged after that. I continued riding down the sidewalk, but Ed hit a flowerbed just to the right of the sidewalk and fell over.

This is the same bike I was riding then.