“Remoted” – Workday 68 / Day 92 (Tuesday)

A couple years ago, I went to a bike swap/sale at a bike shop. I bought a new-to-me hybrid bike, and a friend and I talked about meeting up to ride together on the rail trails halfway between our respective towns. This ride has not yet happened.

In fact, I have ridden that bike exactly once – the day I brought it home from the sale – for about three miles. The Lowell/Dracut traffic freaked me out and I haven’t braved the streets since. It’s funny, because I used to ride regularly in Worcester, which is not exactly known for its quiet or empty streets. But anyway. Every time I enter the shed to fetch the lawn mower, rake, or “big scissor things” to trim the yard stuff,  I’m met by two bikes. There is the (at the time brand new) expensive road bike bought in Tennessee in 2008/09 which I rode for ten miles before wiping out in gravel, hurting my hip, and being rescued roadside by a friend’s stepdad in a pickup truck. And there is also the hybrid bike, bought at the bike swap/sale and ridden for three miles.

Soon will be pumped up.

With the nice weather and the horror of seeing in the mirror my couldn’t-be-further-from-athletic-if-I-tried thighs, carefully crafted by not working out in basically forever, the idea of biking has resurfaced. Unfortunately, all the tires are currently free of air, and the tire pump fell apart in 2016 as I packed it to move. For years I thought about visiting the bike shop that was two blocks from  my office in downtown Lowell to buy a tire pump. I almost made it there once, but it turned out to be a day they weren't open, and last year, or even earlier, the place closed.

After talking with my friend on Saturday  about our to-do lists and other things like biking and the dance classes we miss taking, buying a tire pump was moved up the priority list. I shopped online and read product descriptions and reviews. I found an article that rated the ten best tire pumps, and I found the allegedly best one, which was put into my online shopping cart. For whatever reason, I didn’t buy it and the next day it was listed as “no longer available.” But of course.

Today, before work when it was cool, and then again after work with the sun shining and the trees rustling in a light breeze, I thought how nice it might be to go for a bike ride. Yes, I could get air at a gas station, but no, the bike doesn’t fit into the car easily and no, I’m not fighting with the bike rack to transport the bike to get air. But I did go online, and it was my lucky day because the tire pump was back in stock and at a lower price than Saturday. It is now ordered and due to arrive Friday. Boom! Another thing off the list. Whaddaya know, sometimes things really do just work out.