begin rant

"You just seem like the kind of person who would own a bike."
- Ben Ketcherside

And indeed, Ben - I am the kind of person who would own a bike. I would have owned it sooner, but I lived in Houston, a city that is particularly unfriendly to pedestrian traffic in a state already in love with the heavy truck. As of the afternoon of August 23rd, I was the kind of person who did own a bike. I would have owned it a whole day sooner, but a mixup at the shop sent it home with an individual who had purchased a similar model for his son. His eleven year-old son. Who realized his mistake the minute his son's legs had trouble reaching the ground. Turns out that tall people ride on taller rims.

My noble steed is a 2006 Trek Bikes' model 3900, and it has served me well for the past two months. I am in love with the flexibility and facility that it provides me as I travel from one side of town to another. Gainesville is a city designed for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, and I have gradually begun to explore this town in a slowly expanding radius that spokes outward from my apartment - with a few side-journeys down safe or potentially interesting thoroughfares. It carries me the three miles to biochemistry every morning by 8:30 in the AM, and takes me to the museum and entomology lab buildings in minutes. I haved used my car perhaps once a week since its purchase, and did not refill on gas for the entire month of September. I only wish I had purchased a bicycle sooner.

More importantly, I hope that no one steals my bike. While bicycle theft is not terribly rampant on campus, it is a problem. I even witnessed as one of my colleagues had his bike stolen one afternoon. The thief was so brazen in his disassembly - and even waved hello as I walked by - that I had to assume that he belonged here and it must have been his bike... I figured the only reason I did not know him was because I was still new here. The thief gradually disassembled my colleague's bike over a period of about an hour, and no one else in the department suspected anything was amiss until the true owner returned and found the remains of his frame still chained to the bike rack.

I have taken to fastening my bike as securely as possible, or should I plan to stay in one place for a long while, stashing it in a corner of my locked office. Let us hope that plan works - I have become remarkably attached to the vehicle.