Bye to my "like a kid again" bike

© 2017 Peter Free

 

06 September 2017

 

 

Nothing's forever — even on our short timescale

 

Parting with my elegantly utilitarian Redline d440 today, as with everything else, reminds me of Transience's unavoidably tinged sadness.

 

Photograph of utility-modified Redline d440 29er for article about having to part with it.

 

Yikes — was the ride really this harsh?

 

This story begins with a military PCS from the southern Rockies to Germany in 2014.

 

After more than five years of riding a street-modified Redline d440 almost every day, I had to put it in storage for three years. During that interval, my arthritis progressed noticeably.

 

Upon return, I noticed that the Redline's rigid fork and steel frame's vibration-transmitting characteristics had become too much to handle. Even on a 1 minute ride. What had been barely tolerable when we left the United States had redlined. (Love those silly puns.)

 

The d440 is now headed to a charitable organization. If life is fair to its eminently worthy character, someone younger than I will appreciate it as much as I did. This tinkered d440 remains one of my top three, lifelong favorite bicycles.

 

 

There's always an implication — isn't there?

 

I sit (that's a Buddhist term) with the irony that this terrific "feel like a kid again" bicycle let me know how much my decrepit body has deteriorated over just five years. Post-neurosurgery riding geometry had me part with a carbon-forked, road-silky Cannondale CAAD 10 just a year ago.

 

Now I'm permanently off to suspended forks, fat tires (even on pavement), and eventually full-suspension — with maybe a fully suspended recumbent tricycle looming in the not so distant future.

 

And when those don't work anymore, cremation.

 

That's the plan.

 

We know what Life does to plans.