(Napa River)
Well, it's done. The boy and I went over and picked the new bike up. I test rode it enough at the shop to confirm that the brakes work and the gears change, but with little sense of how it will respond on the road, or off. It seems fun.
I always try to ask myself when I am spending a lot of money: how often will I use the thing I'm buying, and for how long? Then, I try to figure out about how much the thing costs me per month if it lasts a certain number of years, usually three, then divide by how many times I ride each month, approx. This gives me a basic idea of how much the bike costs each time I ride it. With this new bike such an exercise is absurd. I will need to ride it about 300 times, for two hours each ride, before it will have "paid for itself."
Silly, I know. Bikes don't pay for themselves, neither do cameras, nor love. At least they do not do so in my life. 600 hours on a bike is a lot but it can't be thought of that way, or maybe shouldn't be. I know. A bike functions much better in the moment than it does in any future amortization plans.
How many lenses have I bought that I have only used a small handful of times?
Tomorrow I will forget about how much it costs and only admire its functional excellence. I will do a familiar ride first, a bumpy one. Bad roads are everywhere here and in all directions. This is the reason for the new bike, I tell myself - so many bumps in the road.
.
