As mentioned before, I've had bad luck with bikes the last 10 years. In college, I went through three different bikes over the course of my 4 years. One was pretty much totalled, one was stolen, and one was pretty much totalled and then stolen.
Back then I didn't ride my bikes all that hard. For the most part I used them to go back and forth from football practice down the hill, or to the other 5C campuses for classes or food, or even just for the 1/4 mile to get to class. I'd venture down to the village to go to the bank or the post office and up to the safeway for snacks and such. The furthest I would go would be about 4 miles down to the movie theater, or once or twice I went down to Montclaire to go to Gamestop or Bestbuy. And while I certainly enjoyed riding, I always had a destination. I think only once I went for a ride purely for the sake of riding and found a bike trail a little further up into the foothills. In retrospect it was a shame, because there was probably some great trails around, and the weather was always right for it.
In any case, I got my first bike in California right when I first got to college. I found a bike store and asked if they had any used bikes. I needed one quickly because from day one I was travelling to and from football practice which was on CMC's campus twice a day, and a bike just made things way easier. The guy had a used one he said he'd give me for $50. I said sure and away I went. That bike lasted through freshman year, but it was basically falling apart by the end of it. I probably would have suffered through with it for a little while longer, but I left it locked to a bike rack over the summer, and when I came back it was gone.
So sophomore year I buckled down and went to a real bike store to buy a new bike. For about $250 I bought a new, pretty reasonable mountain bike. It worked great, ran smooth, and I rode it all over. It took about 3 months before it was stolen while locked to a rack. I forget if it was from my dorm or if I had left it in academics over night, but in any case, it was gone. Distraught and out what in college was a sizable chunk of currency, I went looking to find something cheap and used again.
I found another used bike somewhere that would get me through the remaining 2.5 years of college. Although functional, by some point in my junior year the gears had broken down to the point where it would only work in the highest of the 3 main gears, and the chain would only catch on half the smaller gears. While it was great going down hill, it was a tough ride to get back up. I ended up giving it to an underclassman when I graduated, and found it unusable when I went back for homecoming the following fall and tried to take it for a spin.
It's been 4 years since college, and I'm once again on my 3rd bike. The stories behind the first two are a little more interesting (and a little fresher in my memory) so I will save those for another post.
Back then I didn't ride my bikes all that hard. For the most part I used them to go back and forth from football practice down the hill, or to the other 5C campuses for classes or food, or even just for the 1/4 mile to get to class. I'd venture down to the village to go to the bank or the post office and up to the safeway for snacks and such. The furthest I would go would be about 4 miles down to the movie theater, or once or twice I went down to Montclaire to go to Gamestop or Bestbuy. And while I certainly enjoyed riding, I always had a destination. I think only once I went for a ride purely for the sake of riding and found a bike trail a little further up into the foothills. In retrospect it was a shame, because there was probably some great trails around, and the weather was always right for it.
In any case, I got my first bike in California right when I first got to college. I found a bike store and asked if they had any used bikes. I needed one quickly because from day one I was travelling to and from football practice which was on CMC's campus twice a day, and a bike just made things way easier. The guy had a used one he said he'd give me for $50. I said sure and away I went. That bike lasted through freshman year, but it was basically falling apart by the end of it. I probably would have suffered through with it for a little while longer, but I left it locked to a bike rack over the summer, and when I came back it was gone.
So sophomore year I buckled down and went to a real bike store to buy a new bike. For about $250 I bought a new, pretty reasonable mountain bike. It worked great, ran smooth, and I rode it all over. It took about 3 months before it was stolen while locked to a rack. I forget if it was from my dorm or if I had left it in academics over night, but in any case, it was gone. Distraught and out what in college was a sizable chunk of currency, I went looking to find something cheap and used again.
I found another used bike somewhere that would get me through the remaining 2.5 years of college. Although functional, by some point in my junior year the gears had broken down to the point where it would only work in the highest of the 3 main gears, and the chain would only catch on half the smaller gears. While it was great going down hill, it was a tough ride to get back up. I ended up giving it to an underclassman when I graduated, and found it unusable when I went back for homecoming the following fall and tried to take it for a spin.
It's been 4 years since college, and I'm once again on my 3rd bike. The stories behind the first two are a little more interesting (and a little fresher in my memory) so I will save those for another post.
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