Technical details, or lack thereof

I have a confession to make. This is actually quite embarrassing. It's a shame that I've been living with for the better part of 7 years now. A burden that I've been carrying, and I figure that it's time I put it down. Here it goes.

I really don't know anything about bicycles.

All those times when the really cool bicyclist are standing around and talking about "crank lengths", and "ceramic ball bearings", and "top tube lengths", and I've been standing there nodding my head with a real serious look on my face. All that time, I've had literally no idea what your talking about.

I can change a flat. I can re-wrap my handle bars. I can.....let's see, I can....... Well, I guess that just about all I can do when it comes to maintaining a bike. Oh, I can also wash, degrease, and re-lube my bike. But other than that, I'm pretty much taking the bike to my local bike shop.

It's not that I don't want to learn. I would love to be able to stand around with the cool cyclist and talk about all of that cool stuff that I mentioned before. And it's not that I'm incapable of learning. There's probably some very serious doubt that I'll ever split the atom, but I would consider myself to be of above average intelligence. I guess if I really was a moron, I wouldn't be smart enough to know that I wasn't that smart. But trust me, I'm fairly intelligent.

So despite what my 9 year old son might tell you, I'm not stupid. No, my problem with learning even the most basic of bicycle care is two fold. The first thing holding me back from performing my own bicycle repairs is laziness. I believe that I have made it fairly clear in past postings, that I am a notoriously lazy person. While it might actually be really fun to go out and work on my bike, I would just assume to fork over the money and pay someone else to do it. The way I see it, I'm supporting the local economy. I'm helping to pay someones salary. If we all took it upon ourselves to do things that we could just as easily pay others to do, the whole economy could collapse. I'm not being lazy. By God, I'm being patriotic. No need to thank me. Just trying to do my part.

The second thing that keeps me from learning just some basic bicycle repair, would be fear. I am terrified that I will take something apart, and not be able to get it together again. I'm also afraid of the embarrassment of having to take the remains of my bicycle into my local bike shop, along with a box of parts, and sheepishly ask them to put it back together for me. If they're going to have to put it together for me anyway, let the lazy SOB's take it apart too. No sense in me doing half the work for them.

So you might be asking yourself, "if he doesn't know anything about bikes, what does he do when it comes time to go shopping for a bike"? I have developed a very simple philosophy for looking for a new bike. I shop for a pretty bike. I look for a bike that I think I would look really cool riding on. Black is my color of choice. I currently ride a black Trek 2300, with black & silver wheels, black and silver tires, black handle bar tape, and a black and silver saddle. I even have black and silver carbon bottle holders. This bike is b*tch*n. I look like I'm going 60 mph on it.

I was recently flipping through a recent issue of "Road" magazine, when I instantly fell in love with an Issac bike. I have no idea about what it's made of, or the components on it, or the aerodynamics of it. I don't know what kind of reputation Issac has as far as making a good quality bike. I don't even know what one cost. All I know is that it looks really good. I can't even begin to image how good I would look riding it. A bike that pretty, just has to be a good bike.

So the next time all of you cool guys get together and talk about all that technical stuff on your bikes, I'll just stand there and pretend to be really interested in what your saying. Not only do I not have any idea what your talking about, I really don't care. The only thing I need to know is, does it come in black?

Peace out.......Nearly Famous Fred