My first "Mountain Bike"

A few years later I discovered the mountain bike.  I bought my first one from a box store called Hermans and was absolutely thrilled. It was iridescent jade green and shimmered in the sunlight. I thought it was the prettiest bike I’d ever laid eyes on and scooped it up and took it home.

My best girlfriend at the time was a really big into cycling and she was super excited when I told her I got this new bike. We chose a day and I rode to meet her for our big ride. I showed up and she took one look at me and said she wouldn’t ride with me.  What!!!  Didn’t you see how the paint glistens in the sun? She acknowledged that it was a good looking bike, but refused to ride with me because  *gasp*, I wasn’t wearing a helmet. A what? I don’t wear a helmet.  Well she informed me that she would not ride with anyone without a helmet. So back home I went to buy a helmet and we arranged another day.

Of course the next  ride day we arranged was right after a big snowstorm and all the snow hadn’t quite melted. However, we weren’t ones to be deterred so decided to head out to the beach path and ride what melted snow patches we could find. We were on mountain bikes after all. They could handle it. Okay well, it turned out she was on a mountain bike. Mine was a wannabe still stock with a kickstand and reflectors. (She later told me that she didn’t have the heart to tell me how geeky that was, and just snickered quietly to herself when she saw it.) Bitch.

The ride went off without a hitch and we probably spent more time lifting our bikes over snow drifts than actually riding, but it was fun none the less. Made it through the whole ride without incident despite the sloppy conditions until….

Until we decided to ride back to her house and passed a local Dunkin’ Donuts. While she is so busy pointing out the donut place, she drifts into me and down I go. I was unscathed, but this managed to snap my plastic brake lever right off the bars. Oh come on…all the ice I dodge with no damage and she takes me down in the parking lot scuffing up my new baby.  We laughed about it for a long time. Okay, she laughed about it, I just hid my resentment with a smile whenever she told the story. I guess I didn’t have a very good sense of humor that day.