<\/p>\n
The most recent time I went camping with my folks, I got to ride a bike around the campsite. \u00a0It more fun than I recalled and I decided that I should own a bike again.<\/span><\/p>\n So, I took myself to Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods with a plan. \u00a0I\u2019m a quick decider when it comes to purchases – which is why I\u2019m no longer allowed to go shoe shopping with my Mom. \u00a0Or grocery shopping – after the \u201cgreen beans incident\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n I went to the bike area and started looking around and then the bike expert arrived and asked if he could help me.<\/span><\/p>\n I told him I was looking for a bike, a helmet, and a rack to put it on my car.<\/span><\/p>\n He asked if the bike was for me and I told him it was. \u00a0He then asked where I\u2019d be riding it and I told him \u201cmostly paved roads, but I don\u2019t want to be uncontrollable if I hit a little gravel\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He nodded and then pulled a bike off the rack. It was a red and black Schwinn. \u00a0He said that they had just put that together recently and it was on sale. \u00a0He made some adjustments to the seat based on my height and I told him I\u2019d take it. \u00a0There’s one.<\/span><\/p>\n Next, the helmet. \u00a0There were helmets on sale and I quickly picked out a black one that would match the bike. \u00a0And two.<\/span><\/p>\n Then, the bike rack. There weren\u2019t a lot of options and we found one that had my style of car listed as viable. And three.<\/span><\/p>\n He put the bike up on the work-station and gave it a once over again to make sure everything was good while I filled out some paperwork. \u00a0From there, we headed up to the front and I paid for the bike. \u00a0Smooth sailing.<\/span><\/p>\n Riiiiiiight up until I had to get the bike rack mounted. Oh, there were plenty of instructions with little happy and frowny faces as guides, but having never put one of these on before I was wildly unconfident. <\/span><\/p>\n After several partial successes (i.e. failures), I managed to get the bike mounted with some trepidation. I fired up the GPS, set a non-highway route, and headed home. \u00a0I was going along okay – keeping a close eye on the bike through the rear window – when I went through a green light and had the driver of the truck next to me lay on the horn and shout at me that I was in a turn-only lane. \u00a0I came to a complete halt, let him proceed, and was mortified and relieved that I had almost<\/em> caused an accident.<\/span><\/p>\n (note: the next time I went through that same intersection, I realized my lane had been \u201cleft or straight\u201d and his was \u201cright turn only\u201d. \u00a0I was, as it turns out, in the right. \u00a0Insert sigh of relief and vindication here.)<\/span><\/p>\n I stopped at Jim\u2019s house to show him the bike and then went on home. \u00a0I\u2019ve been riding it around a bit – it’s harder work than I remember – but haven\u2019t tried the bike rack again. \u00a0And I\u2019m still concerned about highway driving. \u00a0I mean, with the bike on the rack of my car while I’m driving the car on a highway. Not riding my bike on the highway or highway driving in general – in case there was any confusion.<\/span><\/p>\n So, I\u2019ve got a bike now. \u00a0And I\u2019m technically able to participate in a triathlon, though I\u2019m totally not going to do that.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The most recent time I went camping with my folks, I got to ride a bike around the campsite. \u00a0It more fun than I recalled and I decided that I should own a bike again. So, I took myself to Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods with a plan. \u00a0I\u2019m a quick decider when it comes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230\/revisions\/2231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}