This weekend Gert and I took our friend Mike to the bike shop to pick up his bike. Long story, not very interesting.
Gert loves the bike shop. It's filled with expensive things she's not allowed to touch, plus a small section of kids' bikes. The guys at the shop love her too because she is completely fearless about her bike riding.
However, she has gotten in trouble in the past with an old manager at the shop for touching and sitting on the kids bikes. So, I sat down with her to have a chat about it.
"Gert, since you're coming to the bike shop with you have to understand you can't touch the bikes when--"
"Dad. I'm so over that. I'm five now."
And she didn't. She did drool over a pink bike that she desperately wanted. But, like dad, she merely stroked and and sighed, just like I did with the light as a feather racing bike.
Then the guys at the shop started prodding her with the future. "Gert, you're a good bike rider, right? Well, you should get a Stinky. They're pink and they are really cool!"
And so it began. Gert now desperately wants a $4000 mountain bike and I think she's dreaming of singletrack. Thanks Zack for bringing that up. I'm so screwed.
Dude,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure a Stinky is really a XC single track kind of bike. It seems more like a "huck off the top of a semi-trailer" kind of bike. Your looking at a downhill bike and, now, a downhill daughter. Probably you should prime her by reading chapters of Marla Streb's biography to her before she goes to bed at night.
I hope you have good health coverage...and a lot of money to buy body armor.
The Physicist
Admittedly, I know jack about MTB or any other knobby bike. It may have something to do with the fact that when I did own a mountain bike I hurt myself so often that I started to pretend they didn't exist. Plus, in the last decade, they've gotten really complicated. You need a score card to keep up. I tried figuring out what the Stinky's specialty was, but I wasn't bright enough to figure it out.
ReplyDeleteGert on the other hand will fall, slide across the pavement, get a band aid and hop back on and go again. Usually with me screaming, "BRAKES! USE YOUR BRAKES!"
Often she'll come screaming into the driveway, straight toward the house and brake at the very last minute with a smile on her face as wide as a river.