Day 122

122/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

That's right. I took the money that I saved up, and the money from Day 121's wheeling and dealing, and I splurged on a new bike.   


Like I said in the last post, having a bike is a necessity. I had a bike last year (also a fixed gear), but it was janky at best. I got it for $40 bucks on craigslist, and while it was super hip with it's purple frame and gold handle bars, it had a really high gear ratio so it was hard to ride, and without any breaks I had some close calls with a couple of cars. Instead of pumping more money into it, I decided to start anew, retiring hipster machine to the side of my house for now. 


Right after getting some cash from Elliot, I walked down the street to a different bike shop that had a few fixies I was looking at. For those of you that don't know, or just aren't super hip, a fixie is a bike with a fixed gear on the bike wheel. Because it doesn't have a freewheel, there's no coasting: if the tire is turning, so are your pedals. It adds another element to riding a bike, your legs become the brakes and if you get really good, you can ride backwards. It's like going from an automatic transmission in a car to a stick, and I dig it. 


Anyway, I walked into the bike shop and I fell in love with a bike. It was gorgeous, the frame was painted to look like wood, it was super glossy, it had the bullhorn handlebars I wanted, it had nice wheels, and a sweet brown leather seat. Unfortunately, I knew I would beat the crap out of it, and in 6 months it wasn't going to look that beautiful. Next to that bike, though, was the ruggedly handsome bike I ended up with. It was sleek, sexy, durable, and looked like it could handle my abuse. After a bit of haggling with the owner of the shop (Dustin would have been proud), I rode away on my slick new ride. 


I'm really pumped on how this whole scenario played out. This is by far the nicest bike I've owned and I forgot how much fun it was just to go on a ride around town. I'm stoked on this picture, too. This was all natural light, shot at night under Storke Tower on campus. It was a super easy shot, but I dig the background and I think it turned out pretty good.