My bike

Oh my bike, ode to my bike. For 11 long years it has been mine. And for the past 2 1/2 years, it has been ridden nearly every day for about 3 miles round trip to campus. And now...

Slowly, it been to fail. The first replacement I remember were the pedals that broke when I used to ride it to and from the Target in Orem when our family lived in grandma's house while she and my grandpa were away on a mission. Those trips also punctured the tires dozens of times. I sure got tired of patching up the tubes.

There was a scouting trip when I was 14 or so, where we brought our bikes. I remember that my handlebars came loose from the wheel, making it impossible to steer. And no one had a hex wrench set! That same problem made me late for work later too.

I painted it up all nice just before I brought it up to Logan; the black paint had rubbed off from 8th grade when I would haul my saxophone around on it. That also busted my gear shifting mechanism which I had to replace in 2008. It has also begun to rust since I didn't use it much between 9th grade and college.

Only a few times have I actually crashed on it. Once when the chain came loose and my pedal jerked, causing me to fall off the pedals, loose balance, fall forward over the handle bars, hit the ground just as the bike came over and landed on me. And a few other times when I took turns too sharply when I was young and unexperienced (about 1 1/2 ago).

I came close to truly wiping out when I was zipping down from campus when I noticed I was about to hit a curb. The front made it fine over as I jerked at it, but the rear wheel really hit it hard. That bent the rim and bulged the tire and tube. The rear brakes were never the same, even after I replaced the rim from one at DI awhile later when the rear axle simply split in half. Except that rim was a few inches too small. I did find the right size eventually.

The front wheel started to give out when the ball bearings wore through and scattered. That's about when the front brakes stopped working too. Eventually, the axle wore out completely without bearings and I found another axle to replace it. Still have the same rim though.

It wasn't too long ago when the forward chain moving thing got caught in the chain (again) and broke off. I've been in high gear ever since! (To get the highest, one would have to shift quickly enough that the momentum of the shift would set the chain on the smallest rear sprocket, otherwise it would settle on the 2nd one) Not that I can even sit down on that seat that has been stuck low for 10 years; my trench coats would get caught in the wheel.

I mostly blame my dad for my bike lasting as long as it did. It has had a hard life and is now a veritable Frankenstein's monster. Maybe I'll rig my next bike with a battery and motor...