I had thought about buying a bike to cycle around Paris for a while (since early Summer) and had even borrowed my mother’s old bike to fix it and see if I would like using it. However, the bike is old and heavy and even though in the process of fixing it I proudly learned how to change the inner tube of a wheel (it took me 2 hours), I later realized that there would still be too much work to be done on it so I’d rather just buy a new one that I would actually like.
The Summer went by, and although I really wanted to go forward with this project, I was scared and repeatedly found excuses to postpone the purchase. This is actually a big step for me because cycling is one of the things I am the most afraid of, along with driving a car or a scooter in the city. I really only feel comfortable walking, and deciding to push myself was hard. Then, last week, I went on a French website, famous for selling second-hand stuff and saw how many different cheap bikes (less than 100 EUR) I could find. I had no more excuses.
Moreover, among the very first ads I saw MY bike, THE bike of my dreams. To be clear, I know nothing about bikes, so the only thing I was looking for was a light (11 Kg) good-looking and vintage bike.
I immediately wrote to the guy but, because it was a little more expensive than the other ones advertised, after a few email exchanges I told him that I had just started looking and I was still hoping to find something cheaper. After a few days though I couldn’t forget about the red wheeled racing bike and nothing I saw really made me excited about cycling.
In addition, I saw that the ad was still online (which is rare for a bike, they are sold in a couple of days generally), so I contacted the guy again, negotiated a little bit the price and said that I was coming to try it. I was open and honest with him and told him that I didn’t know much but I would take it no matter what so he could just tell me anything there was to know about it. We talked for 45 min before I left with it, scared to death to use it (the meeting point was 10 min away from my home but it felt like the journey of a lifetime).
Once I got home I realized that this was IT, now I had the bike and would need to commit to it. I cooled down my nerves for 30 min and right after that I back back on the bike and left for my S.O. apartment which is a complicated journey by public transports but a straightforward one by bicycle.
Since then I have been cycling as often as possible while enjoying a beautiful Indian Summer and still haven’t looked for lame excuses to leave the bike at home.
On Wednesday (the day I bought it):
- 4.1 km from Home to my S.O. apartment
On Thursday
- 7.7 km from my S.O. home to my Office (very early journey that helped me wake up)
- 5.6 km from my Office to my Home
- 4.1 km (times two) from Home to after-work evening at the Rosa Bonheur sur Seine and back
On Friday:
- 7.1 km (times two) from Home to my friend’s Farewell Party and back (unfortunately I had to go back the next Morning to get my bike back)
On Sunday:
- 6.1 km (times two) from Home to my best friend’s apartment and back (with a pit stop in the Bois de Boulogne for a late Afternoon picnic)
Total : 59.1 km in five days
Because I have a tendency to go full mode when I find something that I like, I have also been buying on Amazon all sorts of gadgets for the bike. Safety first: the unavoidable smart phone support to look at the GPS while riding aswell as frontal and rear lights.
Then, for fun, wheel lights, reds for my bike, blue for my S.O bike, because his wheels are as blue as mine are red obviously. I am so looking forward to received them (it was around 1 EUR on Amazon so the expedition is not the fastest) so hopefully in a month my bike will look like that!
52 Weeks Challenge 
Love the bike. Glad to hear that you are actually riding it.
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