the great bike saga 2008, pt 1

here begins a saga about bicycling in boston, and the adventures we can have while looking for a good ride.

it all began with the huge, man eating rose bush that grows under my porch. this particular rose bush has somehow found a way to survive any harsh conditions boston can throw at it, and visibly grows several inches every week, slowly consuming the wooden railings in the porch. over the summer, this rose bush had grown to the point where the entrance to my apartment was no longer visible. this was a good thing, because each day, returning home was like disappearing into a secret entrance behind a jungle of thorns. as a result, i was also able to park my old, red bike on the porch, hidden without fear of being targeted by bike thieves.

some time during the summer, as i was riding, the right pedal snapped off of the bicycle. rather than getting ripped off at cambridge bicycles, i purchased a bike tool set and found that replacing bicycle pedals was easy, if you only had the spare parts. luckily, i had some junk bikes in the basement, and i replaced the broken stub (which had already worn a hole in my shoe) with a nice, inconspicious pink pedal. i also successfully made a switch with the wheels, skeweres, and various other parts so that i had, for once in a long time, a fully working road bike.

so then i continued to trust in the rose bush for protection of this relatively acceptable steed since i was too lazy to even use my chain combo lock. and then in the morning on some july monday, i came downstairs to catch the lincoln shuttle, and it took me a second to realize that the porch was bare. someone (probably the gardeners) had trimmed the rose bush and other plants so the porch was nice and neat and exposed. and empty, because now my red bicycle, no longer protected in a nest of thorns, was gone, and only the stub of the old pedal remained.