Times Change
When I was a child…
(waiting for the wife to stop laughing)
and I got a new bicycle, the first thing I would do is remove all the bells and whistles that came with it. All reflectors, streamers, baskets, anything that could be removed and yet still be a functional bike.
I did the same thing with my first motorized scooter. Much to the dismay of my parents, I removed everything I could. This was all done in the name of lightening for performance, or to look cool.
(another pause …)
Before I got my ever-so-cool Rans bike, and after my custom built mountain bike was disabled, I wound up riding a loaner from a friend of mine. This was a Specialized mountain bike from an age gone by. It had a rear rack with a bag, a kickstand (ack!) and a real annoying bell on the handlebars. Because the bike was not mine, I did not feel I had the right to streamline it, so I rode it as it was.
It is common for the wife and I to ride for a while and then go get a bagle from one store and hot chocolate from another. I found it fun in these first days to ring the bell all the time. (Who am I kidding? I still like to ring the bell) So we pulled up outside the bagle shop and got our breakfast. I realized how nice it was to have a rack and a bag on the back to hold things. There was even a bungie inside to hold my jacket when it got warm. Nice.
Next we rode to the coffee shop to get a hot chocolate. After we got our drinks, we walked to a park close by. When I stopped and got off the bike, I put the kickstand down and stood back and stared at the bike. It was upright, on its wheels. I didn’t have to lay it down in the … well what ever was in the grass. I stood there for a bit and then told the wife to look at it. After about the third time drawing her attention to it she finally told me to shut up. But I was having an Oprah Ah-Ha moment. A kickstand, what a great invention.
Needless to say on my Rans bike is a kickstand, a rear rack with a bag, and yes, a bell.
