A Karmatic Approach to Bicycles

A few weeks ago the back tire of my bike was stolen. Now, I have been planning on getting a new bike for a long time actually, and if I was stealing a bike tire I certainly wouldn't take the beat up piece of rubber I had been ridding on as of late, but, c'est la vie. This bike and I have been through a lot together though. It was a 16th birthday present. That means I got it in November of 1997. Almost ten years ago. It made it through two years of city life before moving to Rochester, NY. While there it weathered 5 winters outside, one of them locked to Bausch & Lomb hall. It spent its summers in Philadelphia, making regular trips up and down the Schuylkill River. In 2000 it killed a goose that had made the poor decision of getting in its way. In August of 2004 it made its way to Wisconsin (and 3 more winters outside) strapped to the roof of The Van. This would prove to be a harbinger of a shared fate for these two vehicles. By 2005 The Van had dropped its transmission and the bike could no longer reliably shift. Now both are dead. Perhaps surprisingly, I am not, despite the fact that I have been riding a bike with only front brakes for over a year.

But, what goes around comes around. While Evan (who is supposed to be in charge of overseeing the shipping of all of Fuji Bike's inventory from China) tried to figure out how to ship a bike to Wisconsin, I found an ad on Craigslist for a single speed road bike with a 62" frame. For $60. Mine. Oh, and it was a Fuji.