How We Met

A missionary in my little brother Mr. Pibb's ward was selling his bike and Mr. Pibb was interested in getting one to ride around town with Mrs. Pibb. I was in town visiting, so I went with Mr. Pibb to check out the bike. It was a nice 2004 Trek 4300 so I gave Pibb the nod to indicate it was a fair deal for a good bike. I had mentioned earlier the features I wanted when it came time to upgrade from my current bike, "The B-2." The Trek had some of those features so on the way home, much to my surprise, he offered to trade. We worked out a deal so that essentially I bought the missionary's bike and Mr. Pibb is buying The B-2 from me.

The hard part wasn't deciding if I wanted to buy the Trek. The hardest part was deciding if I really wanted to let go of The B-2. I had never planned on getting rid of her. If I got a new bike I would keep The B-2 and dedicate each bike for a different purpose: one for the road, one for the dirt. But this deal works out well for everybody.

The sad part is that I won’t actually have possession of the Trek for about a month. I didn’t want to take it home with me and leave Mr. Pibb without any bike. Especially since one is most likely to be motivated to ride immediately after getting a bike and there is only about a month of ridable weather left before winter hits. So he can ride around town on the Trek and I’ll finish the season on The B-2, then we’ll trade bikes next time we see each other. Then I'll start off next year with a new ride! YAAAAAY!

- A side note about one of my quirks: As many of you know, I’m a bit of a shade-tree bike mechanic. In fact if you know me at all and you own a bike, chances are I’ve worked on your bike at some point. I can’t stand to see a bike in a state of disrepair.

This isn’t just a hobby; it’s a borderline OCD. (I’ve stopped to fix poorly assembled bikes on display at the department store.) When we were looking at this missionary’s bike I paused to admire his companion’s Specialized. He didn’t even know it, but his bike was in horrible shape. Not just in need of a tune up, but actually unsafe to ride. I nearly cried at the sight of such a gorgeous bike in such horrible need of attention, so I flipped it over and started working. I’m not sure how much time passed … I guess an hour or two, but I could not pull myself away until it was safe and functional again.