Last month, I fell in love.
Did I meet a nice man? Well, yes, or at least a man who was both not wearing a shirt and willing to share his PBR, which is kind of better in my book. However, he is more beside the point than shirtless men offering me beer generally are, because I met him at the same moment I lost my heart to a shiny red K2 seven-speed mountain bike. I bought it on Saturday afternoon, and five minutes later I’d added silver sequins and a cupholder thanks to some judicious raiding of a friend’s garage. At her urging, she will henceforth be known as Bike Pimp.
Living in Jackson, Wyoming, it’s more or less a town ordinance that you own a bike. I’d already skirted close to the edge of the Unspoken Laws of Jackson Hole by spending a whole winter not only never skiing, but not knowing how, so buying a bike seems a good way to simultaneously Do As The Romans Do and Do As I Damn Well Please. Plus, I’ve been duly warned that parking spaces downtown in the summer are somewhat akin to drinks on the rocks in Hell – possible, but only in a pretty narrow window – so a bike seemed like a practical way to avoid unnecessary homicidal urges.
Am I a big bike person? In terms of my level of enjoyment in a bike ride, yes. But keep in mind, I had to have someone explain to me what brand of bike I had and how to tell how many speeds it included (turns out speeds = gears and I = mechanically challenged). I went into Hoff’s Bikesmith, where reside the least obnoxious “bike people” I’ve ever met, and asked for a basic mountain bike that would move forward when I pedaled, stop when I used the brakes and cost less than $300.
I got exactly what I wanted and was very happy about it. I also spent two days responding to questions about what kind of bike I had with “a red one.”
My previous bike-owning experience largely consisted of a very large and beat-up blue mountain bike affectionately known as The Wonder Steed that I used in college. The major selling points – a) it went forward when I pedaled and stopped when I put on the brakes b) it cost me about $20 c) the seat was purple with pink stars on it.
The brakes did have their tendencies to make a god-awful squeaking noise when used, but it got me reliably from point a to point b for my last two years of college. I learned how to effectively bike drunk and bike in heels on that baby, humiliated myself in a charity mini-triathlon riding it (oh such a long a story) and learned the fine art of noticing when my tires were low on air.
Clearly, this is never going to be a space to indulge in bike jargon. Or spandex. I hereby do not claim to be a hardcore biker, or even an especially good one.
However, I don’t think I could live in a better area to own a mountain bike.
I live minutes from Grand Teton National Park and I can get to and from Yellowstone National Park in a day’s drive with time left over for hiking. If you’re not into sharing space with the national park kind of tourist, I live one block from the Bridger-Teton National Forest, a few miles from the National Elk Refuge and an easy distance from the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. You get it; this is a good place to have eyes, and if you can see some of the great stuff around here, get Wonder Woman calves and thighs and bring a six-pack of beer with you with minimal effort, so much the better.
Bring it on, summer. My little red bike and I are ready for you.
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