I don't want to spend a long time blogging tonight so I'll just say that my old Motobecane Nomade, which was my friend David's mum's bike and is probably older than us, has gotten to the point where I was ploughing more labour and money into it than it was worth. The final straw was when several of the rear wheel spokes broke this Sunday and I was told by the Budget Bicycles guys that the wheel was a write-off.
I think I'll miss that old bike. When you start to love a machine, you begin to impose a personality on it and that's how you think of it, as a person...here she is riding a bus.
And next to a very snazzy-looking cousin outside of Agricultural Hall (kind of hard to see but the down tube does say "MOTOBECANE").
Anyway today I couldn't stop thinking about it all day at work and even though I've got a big animal study to deal with tomorrow, I thought I'd go crazy without a bicycle.
For me it's not just a thing, not just a consumer product to be desired. The bicycle is a symbol of freedom - from the tyranny of the bus schedule, imprisonment in a metal box, selling one's soul to petroleum. It's all about the wind in your face, nothing between you and the world, nothing pushing you forward but the strength of your own body. I feel trapped without two wheels. That's why I kept the old one as long as possible.
So I went to Budget Bicycles' new bikes showroom and asked how much I could get for the Nomade on a trade-in. The supervisor told me twenty dollars. I argued with him a bit but he didn't budge. "It might not even be worth fixing." One of the younger mechanics piped up, "What are you talking about? It's a Motobecane!" which was kind of flattering. Yay classic French bikes.
I told the guy I wanted a light hybrid - I hate chunky bikes and specified that I wanted one with a light frame and "skinny tyres". I'd earlier had my eye on a Gary Fisher Wingra (some of the Fisher bikes are named after lakes around Madison!) because I saw someone on the street with it and liked it. 
Anyway I also test-rode a Fuji Absolute DX, and an Absolute 4.0.
Turns out with bikes at least you do get what you paid for. After I rode the 4.0, I started to say "Well, it kinda..." and the shop guy interrupted with "It's kinda noisy when you shift?" Heck yeah, and a squeaky drivetrain makes me crazy. (Even on my old bicycle I always made sure it was lubricated, even if I didn't get around to cleaning it.) He explained that for models in a series of bikes, as the price goes up the components get better at each step, but the frame gets better every couple of steps. So the DX and the 4.0 have more or less the same frame, but the DX is just better.
I ended up going with the DX because it was fifty dollars cheaper than the Wingra, I liked the twist shifters better than the triggers, and the toe clips on the pedals, while entirely new to me, felt good when I tried them. "That's a lot of bike for that price," the guy told me, explaining that it was on sale because it was a 2007 model.
So I've replaced my Old Lady with an Ice Lady. Although the effect is rather spoilt by the fact that she's carrying my same old rack and plastic basket, plus tool pouch and an added kickstand: 
Rather like a triathlete in a unitard laden down with grocery bags.
The view from the front: 
It's great. I feel like it's running on rails when I go along a smooth stretch of road. I have an extra chainwheel and THREE more gears - incredible.
On the serious side, it's a reminder of the kind of privileged life I have, that I can spend $400 on a bike and not worry about what I'm going to eat tomorrow...that I have the power to invest in a good new bike rather than spending dribs and drabs of cash trying to keep the old one going as long as possible. Sometimes when the privileged ask why poor people make bad choices, they don't realize it's because there is in fact no choice to be made.
Last thought: looking at the standover height and recommended height range of rider for the size I got - I seem to be addicted to riding bikes taller than I should (the shop guy said it was fine though). I hate being low to the ground in traffic! In college it had the nice side effect of preventing other girls from asking to borrow my babies though.
Labels: bicycle
(Which may not sound like much but if that distance changes for some reason, I've got more to worry about than the mounting bracket, i.e. a severely bent wheel.) 
