bombs in bottles
I bought a bicycle today.
As usual, let me back up. I owned a bicycle before today. It was a Shimano my husband bought for me at Costco on the grounds that "it was on sale" and "the box says it fits people your height." Which I guess maybe? some of them? except the box did not account for my exceptionally short wingspan. Trips of more than about a mile were uncomfortable; more than about three miles was physically painful. I had to strain *just enough* to reach everything that it was unpleasant to ride.
I did ride that bike a bit when he bought it. I thought it'd be fine. I've never owned a bike that actually fit me. My entire childhood was hand-me-down bikes from older and larger relatives and friends.
Once we moved to the place I live now, though, I stopped riding. I am too old to adapt to a too-large bicycle, apparently; my arthritis is just not having it anymore. It sat in the basement and made spider friends.
Meanwhile, I thought a lot about how most of the things I need to get to - the grocery store, the library, the hardware store, the bank, the pharmacy, the gym, the hiking trails, my workplace - are all three miles or less from me, mostly through neighborhoods where the speed limit is never above 35 mph. It is absurd to drive when everything is so close. But the SUV that hit me left me unable to walk that far without a lot of pain, and I didn't have a bicycle that hurt any less.
Until today.
Ya girl just dropped more money than she intended to on a Marin Larkspur 1:
https://www.marinbikes.com/bikes/2025-larkspur-1
(The local bike shop did take my works-fine-but-too-large old bike as a trade-in. I immediately spent the savings on a new bike helmet, a proper bike lock, and a couple bright yellow shirts to make myself more visible on the road.)
I can't write an unbiased review of this bicycle. I haven't had a bike that fit me in decades, maybe ever in my life. The only comparison in my adult life is the bike that was too big. I can only write a biased review.
My biased review:
1. I really like this bike for riding around town here. I took it out for about an hour after I got home. I stuck to the neighborhoods, but the neighborhoods here are hilly and the pavement ranges from "okay" to "surface of the moon." Traffic aggression ranges from "let me just give you the whole right lane" to "you didn't need your left foot, did you?" This bike handles potholes just fine, and shifting is easier than any bike I've ever owned - it has one little thumb lever for down and another right next to the first for up. I forgot to install my rearview mirror before I left, but I recommend one for dealing with traffic.
2. I do wish the back brakes were a little grabbier. I like a bike that tries to throw me off like a spooked horse when I slam the brakes. (This preference is an overcorrect from my teen years, when my parents wouldn't buy me a bike but instead gave me my mother's old road bike, whose back brakes did not work at all. ...We lived five miles from the nearest anything, at the bottom of a moraine.) This can probably be adjusted by someone who knows more about How Bicycles Work than I do.
3. That said, the disc brakes are NIIIICE. I've only ever had the ones with the calipers and pads before.
4. Color and style were my dead-last concerns, but I really do like the color and style of this bike.
Not a bike review but perhaps a useful piece of advice: If you're buying neon clothing for visibility purposes and you can possibly fit in it, shop the children's section. The local big box store offered me a neon pink women's tank top for $24 or a neon yellow boy's tank top (same brand) for $7. I ended up buying the boy's tank and a boy's neon yellow SPF 50 rashguard for $14 total.
...Then I got home and remembered I still have the neon yellow T-shirt from last fall's "Neon" themed Homecoming. Eh. Now I have options.
(Yes, I always buy the Homecoming t-shirt. I never like the shirt, but I always want my students to see I support them. The shirts are great for painting and other chores.)
The bike is unlikely to eliminate my need for the car, alas. Most of the things I need are within three miles of me - but I am separated from several of them by a pair of intersecting stroads. One of them prohibits bicycles entirely, and the other is absolutely not safe to ride on.
(Two fun facts about riding bicycles on sidewalks: (1) it's technically illegal unless local ordinances specifically permit it and (2) it is statistically more dangerous than using roads, because drivers are 100% NOT looking for bicyclists on sidewalks at intersections or driveways. Unless you walk your bike over every drive and intersection, you're MORE likely to get hit on a sidewalk than in the road. Yeah, it feels fake, but the numbers don't lie.)
Also, sometimes I need more stuff than I can carry home on a bicycle. I'm not carting home a bunch of 2x4s or fifty pounds of chicken feed on a bike. And those stroads between me and work will be unsafe to cross in the dark - y'know, the dark like it is most mornings during the school year. (Plus we get snow. I am not riding to work in the snow.)
Nonetheless, now that I have spent way more than I intended on a bicycle, I am going to put it to work.
Bicycle goals:
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