Five-Hundred Thirty-Seven Dollars and no/100s.

[fyrstormer]

So I was standing in my garage a few minutes ago, looking at my paraplegic bike hanging from the ceiling by its hoist and inspecting some of the growing pile of parts I've bought in anticipation of having disc tabs welded on, and I started thinking about how I even came to own this bike. In an infinite quantum universe, everything is pretty unlikely, but ending up a Pro-Flex owner seems more unlikely than usual.

- - -

At some point in early 1998, I was working on a project for a newspaper elective in high school, and someone else in the class was hacking away at a bunch of magazines for some art collage thing they were supposed to have finished at home the previous evening. One of those magazines was an issue of Mountain Biker, which they left behind when the bell rang and they sprinted to their next class. I swiped the magazine (as I did with pretty much anything else that caught my attention, back then) and flipped through it when I got home.

The last bike I'd gotten was a Huffy Sonic 6, back in 1989. (It had multiple gears and everything!) I was ecstatic when I saw it under the Christmas tree, and I'd been happily riding it ever since. There are lots of hills in the neighborhood I grew up in, one of them being a 1/4-mile monstrosity that had to be snowplowed with a bulldozer because that was the only thing that could get enough traction, and by 1998 I'd gotten strong enough that I could ride up it in top gear on my Huffy. Still, it had never occurred to me to look for another bike, for two reasons: 1, I'd never been without a bike and so there was no joy of rediscovering childhood fun or anything like that, and 2, the bike I had still worked and I'd never replaced anything that still worked before.

Flipping through that Mountain Biker magazine changed all that. I was stunned when I saw the bikes they had in that magazine -- everything from the hardtail GT Zaskar (which one article said could "chew up singletrack like a rototiller on crack cocaine", which still makes me laugh) to long-travel downhill rigs made by Mountain Cycles. That was it, I was hooked, and I relentlessly pursued my new goal like a moth pursues a flame -- in a slow, casual spiral that takes forever to finish.

The next weekend I tore my Huffy Sonic 6 completely apart -- literally down to the individual ball-bearings -- washed everything by hand, and reassembled it. I remember my dad looking at me like he was concerned for my sanity. (It wouldn't be the last time he did so.) It rode like a dream after all that work, seeing how it spent the majority of its life perched outside at the end of the driveway, lined up next to my parents' cars, but of course no amount of maintenance could transform it into one of the bikes in that magazine. So it was off to the bike shop to see what they had available. There was a nice Giant something-or-other that was full-suspension, and I almost bought it, but in retrospect it was kinda chintzy.

Anyway, I decided to look around some more first, because I had lots of spiraling left to do. So I went to the other bike shop in Lynchburg, rode a couple of bikes, took notes, and went on my way. Then I drove an hour away to Roanoke to see what the bike shops there had. Then I drove to Charlottesville. Then to Richmond. (Remember I said that wasn't the last time my dad would look at me like I was nuts? This is what I mean.) Basically I drove all over the state to see what sorts of bikes I could actually get my hands on with a grocery-bagger's wage. Oh, and I re-read that same magazine cover-to-cover virtually every single day; I can still see the cover image of Paola Pezzo riding some badass-looking full-suspension bike up a fire road towards the camera.

By this point several months had passed. It was now after Christmas, and it was too cold to do much of anything. I was getting to the point that I could practically recite the entire contents of that magazine in my sleep, and so I was starting to pay more attention to the less-colorful articles and ads, like one for the Irvine Bike Source and their amazing half-off sale on Pro-Flex bikes. (ah, suddenly the plot arc becomes clear, eh?) I hate using the phone, I always have, but I called them anyway because they had some bikes at the upper range of what I could afford. $800 was my limit, and I knew I wasn't going to get any help from the 'rents because they thought I was nuts to even consider spending half that much on a bike. So I called them to ask if they had any 657's left in stock...no, they didn't sorry. Damn. Well, did they have anything comparable? Hold on, they'll check in "The Back"...yes, they had a blue 756 that was a year older but basically the same bike. Good enough. My dad's credit card number is blah blah blah, good day sir, hung up and wrote my dad a check -- for $537 smackers. Now he knew I had lost my mind.

Two weeks later, there was a huge box waiting for me when I got home from school, and the rest is history. 

[fyrstormer]

Part 2, because I exceeded the maximum character limit. 

- - -

I suppose it might seem strange that I remember something like this in such detail; the fact is, while my childhood was far better than that of a starving kid in Africa, there were quite a few things that happened that I'm still trying to remember just long enough to forget, and biking is pretty much the only thing besides eating that goes back far enough that I can be sure I wasn't manipulated into liking it. Like I said before, I've always had a bike; I can remember being two years old and riding on a big-wheels, and then later on a couple of department-store bikes, and then my 756. It's just always been there. Biking got my mom to realize I wasn't a helpless little kid anymore, when I successfully rode to the grocery store and back. Biking got me my first girlfriend; she felt sorry for me after I ran into that Firebird I mentioned in another thread. Biking helped me burn off energy when I was stressing about my internship and my girlfriend in another state, when I couldn't sleep without exhausting myself. Biking gave me something to do on the weekends at college, when everyone else went home on Friday night. Riding on the beach in the middle of the night kept me sane at the end of college, when all my friends had graduated and I was living alone for the first time ever. And of course, biking keeps me relatively healthy now that I sit at a desk all day long. Biking isn't just a hobby for me, it is me; it is part of the definition of myself. $537 is pretty cheap to get all that in return.

[fyrstormer]

If you actually read all that, here's a picture of a model wearing a dress made out of innertubes:



There. Aren't you glad you didn't hit the Back button?

[orange]

what a great story

[Lysander]

Outstanding.............there's nowt better than that first moment ye get hooked.

[shovelon]

Nice story. Bikes are cool.

[shovelon]

We owe it all to him.

[fyrstormer]

That's Bob Girvin, I take it?

[spikebender]

" I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride it where I like "
                                                                                         
                                                                      Freddy Mercury

[shovelon]

That's Bob Girvin, I take it?

Yup, I like the fact that Proflex as a company dedicated themselves to full suspension, and made it work. That is what convinced me to buy my first proflex. Bob Girvin had that vision I believe.

[Spokes]

Bravo! That is an excellent inspiring story.

Chris

[rapiddescent]

interesting guy.  He also invented other things including a petrol gauge for motorbikes.  I only met him once.

[purple gerbil]

The man himself....BOB GIRVIN..


http://www.completesite.com/mbhof/page.cfm?pageid=6&year=2008&memberid=168

[Spokes]

interesting guy.  He also invented other things including a petrol gauge for motorbikes.  I only met him once.

What more can you say 

Chris