During the week I discovered why my bank account seemed so low in December, when my credit card bill arrived. Because I paid last month’s credit card bill twice. Ah, the dangers of Internet banking. Apparently I paid it in mid-December, but failed to write down (as I usually do) the payment details on the bill. Then about a week later I came across the bill again, and paid it again. D’oh. So now my Visa card is $2000 in credit. So, maybe time for a spending spree?
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It’s been years since my old bicycle got stolen. But after all this time, and especially after facing amulti-thousand dollar car repair bill last October*, I’ve finally geared up (geddit?) to buy a new one. And today I did. For a couple of weeks now I’ve been looking at various shops and bicycle manufacturers on the web, and when I discovered last week that not only areMalvern Star still in business, but they make some very nice recreational bikes, well, how could I resist? When I was a kid, everybody had a Malvern Star. Or at least, if they didn’t have a Malvern Star, that’s what they wanted.
I wasn’t after a multi-thousand dollar cycling machine like my mate Mick has. No riding
around the bay in a day for me, thank you. No death-defying edurance-testing jaunts down to Mornington and back. No, just a bit of gentle (and occasionally fast) riding, with the kids, or on my own, as a gentle way of getting a bit more fit, so I can eat pizza more often without feeling too guilty about it.
So this morning I dropped in on a bike shop in Prahran and got myself a very sleek and cool looking "Vision FS". I’m guessing FS stands for Front Suspension, ‘cos it’s got it. Neat. Compared to my last bike, it’s very high tech. 21 gears, alloy… ummm… bits. Shimano thingies. Zowee.
This evening after eating some pizza for dinner, I went for a ride. It was just before dusk, so I didn’t go out for too long, since I don’t have lights.
It was fun, riding along the side streets. The two things I noticed were that I kept wanting to look to a mirror, like I was driving my car, so I could see what was behind me. And that I was much higher up than in my car, which gave me a different (somewhat forgotten) perspective of how the road looks from a bicycle seat.
All in all, fun.
*And they just told me the car’s brake pads need replacing.
