I hope that the new owner of my bike gets as much joy out of it as I
did.
I hadn't been planning on selling it.
It was an option that could possibly happen while I was in the US, but
I hadn't actually planned on it.
Because this is a bike that I liked enough to take with me to the US.
But, it just sort of happened.
When I got the initial offer on my bike I was willing to sell it
because it was going to go to a friend.
But, even after the friend changed his mind, when the tally of things
that I planned to acquire over the summer plus things I had already
acquired was tallied up it was obvious there would be no room for my
bike.
So I put it on craigslist.
I hadn't intended to do that.
But the other option was to basement it until the next time I come back
to the US and that would be a cruel thing to do to a good bike.
So it's not mine anymore.
I think I like the person who bought it. She's hoping to go on a month
long tour maybe next summer and this is her first good bike.
But I still feel kind of sad about letting it go.
I hope she's a better choice than the person who bought the bike
before. He hardly ever rides it. In the time it took me to put
10,000km on my odometer he put 250km on his.
That bike was my first metric century.
This bike was my first tour, my first century, my first race...
And now it belongs to someone else.
Even if she did pay me more than I paid for it new and even if I do
kind of need that money and even if I've got new toys... my bike with
the scrap of red fabric on the seatpost from when the tailor had to
take a skirt in three inches, with the dent in the top tube from
falling over a stoplight, with the soft gray handlebar tape that I got
with prize coupons, with the sticker from the public trip to the
volcano where the bike club had _me_ in charge of a group of newbies,
with a cracked water bottle cage from my first big accident... it now
belongs to someone else.
I hope she takes good care of it.
-M