When we were in Valencia, both Cynthia and I had bikes. I was none too fond of mine, and I think it could sense this, because after a while it started trying to kill me. We lived in this state of mutual animosity for more than a year, with it developing new wobbles and problems as fast as it could, and me threatening to throw the damn thing off the roof at every opportunity, until late one night it was stolen. Frankly, I was about glad to be rid of the accursed infernal money-eating contraption of the devil.
The problem came about in the next few days as I found that, having become accustomed to moving about the city at a certain pace, walking was just annoyingly slow. Jaunts that should have taken me 4 - 5 minutes took 20-25. And after so long on the bike, walking now seemed like more exertion than it might be worth (unless we were going to the beach.) On top of all that, I missed the city-as-obstacle-course challenge that having a bicycle lent to my day.
It had taken me some time to begin to appreciate the fun that could be derived from going about town at a terrible break-neck speed, hopping curbs, dodging dogs, skidding around corners, playing chicken with cars, whizzing by right next to people and hearing them scream in alarm and dive for cover. In the same way as having a motorcycle, it fundamentally changed the way you looked at the terrain in front of you. You had to constantly gauge the narrowing distances between people and objects, the slowly increasing distance between one person and another, and calculate the quickly decreasing distance between you and the target (ahem, person, I mean) and make split-second decisions about which side of the old lady you would go on. It was a lot like shopping in Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon, but you're the only one with the cart, and at 50 times the speed.
So I decided I would have to buy another bike. I did, buying the cheapest one I could find, since we were out of there in a couple of months anyway. It was too small for me, not very nice, but extremely light, and it got me where I wanted to go. Upon leaving I sold it to the director of our school, who functioned as a sort of clearing-house for bikes. He would buy them up, and the new teachers who arrived could buy them from him.
When we arrived here in Poland, Cynthia made mention of the fact that I should get a bike. So did about 14 other people. I told them that it was possible, but not likely, that such a thing would happen, and when they saw a star in the East, or the Devil was seen buying thermals, that would be the sign that I had bought a bike.
Of all my classes, I have only one that is a one-on-one class. I go to the big department store, and go to the office of the store dyrektor. Three times a week He and I speak for an hour, and then I go down, do some shopping and leave. Not infrequently he plies me with "breakfast," which is normally an open faced sandwich of smoked salmon, or gives me bottles of fiery-liquids, or gives me 4 feet of homemade Polish sausage. So it was nothing unusual when he offered to get me a reduced price on a bicycle. I thanked him graciously, and told him I would think about it. After some perusal of what his store had on offer, I was thinking of declining. The cheap bicycles were too cheap, and the expensive ones were too costly for something I love as little as a bicycle.
However, a week later he handed me brochure of nothing but bicycles, (similar to a wally-world publication) which they would be receiving soon. Therein I found what looked like a nice mix of features at an appropriate cost, and acquiesced. I received 20% off the already reduced sales-price, and was told that it would be here in 4 days. He even asked me what color I would like, since he thought the advertised yellow was, in his words, "A little gay." I told him the color wasn't important to me, and so I ended up with silver.
The first thing I noticed upon mounting my new bicycle, is that my legs are OUT OF SHAPE. It didn't used to hurt nearly this much to ride on flat ground. My goodness, my legs need some work. I hadn't thought about it before, but most of my exercise over the winter months had been phenomenally good for my upper-body, (pull-ups, mainly,) and neglected my lower-body almost completely. Well, now is the day of reckoning.
I am beginning to recapture the joy of riding down innocent pedestrians, dodging cars and hopping curbs. It certainly makes the trip to work more interesting. On a side-note, this bike is different from my previous ones. The previous ones were of a traditional design, and on this one the rear wheel is a separate piece from the frame, on a hinged arm with a large spring that goes back to the frame, which makes it a lot easier to jump off of and back onto higher things, without so much jarring to the bike. On the downside, the bike is extremely heavy. However, no doubt with time I will get used to it.
Cynthia is already insisting that we must bicycle to Slovakia this summer. I counter that just because I made one mistake, (buying the bicycle,) does not mean I will be conned into making another. But she already knows who is going to win.
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