(or: What happens when you spend too much time with Californians, part 1)I used to work in a bike shop. I wasn't there a long time, and unfortunately I didn't get a great deal of experience building bikes. This, is because I'm very cautious. I wasn't about to take a spanner to something that would shortly be zipping through traffic and whose rider would have to trust that the brakes would work. No thank you: I'd leave that to the experts. Result: many of the parts on a bike remained a mystery. I wanted to do it, but never went for it. According to a business friend, it's against my personality profile. I'm just not a risk taker.
Over this last year I decided I've had enough of that: I'm going to take a few risks. The Stocherkahn adventure was one example of this, fixing bikes is another.
I've mentioned previously that I'm fixing bikes again, but the process is continuing and getting a lot more involved than I expected. One breakthrough was when Andy, one of our young people who is also learning to fix his bike, offered me the use of his tools. This is handy because I didn't have any, and working together is more fun than working on your own, and we now have a list of people who are willing to let us look at their bikes for the cost of the parts we replace. To avoid people having a nasty surprise we generally suggest they take it to a bike shop for a quick once-over afterwards.
There are loads of practical advantages to my learning this skill: my bike is already an important way to get about, and if (when) we live further away from a city and accompanying public transport links, cycling is likely to become our main way to go shopping, visiting, and any number of other things. There is already some exciting stuff happening with this and we are already investing so that we can be ready in the future, (I can hardly wait to tell you about that). It also makes financial sense to be able to fix our bikes with three boys who are likely to try riding down cliffs, stairs, and anything in between. It is good to have a practical skill to help people.
However, these advantages notwithstanding, this is really a small step on a personal journey of learning to take more risks and try things. Watch this space for the succeses, and the failures.
I've mentioned previously that I'm fixing bikes again, but the process is continuing and getting a lot more involved than I expected. One breakthrough was when Andy, one of our young people who is also learning to fix his bike, offered me the use of his tools. This is handy because I didn't have any, and working together is more fun than working on your own, and we now have a list of people who are willing to let us look at their bikes for the cost of the parts we replace. To avoid people having a nasty surprise we generally suggest they take it to a bike shop for a quick once-over afterwards.
There are loads of practical advantages to my learning this skill: my bike is already an important way to get about, and if (when) we live further away from a city and accompanying public transport links, cycling is likely to become our main way to go shopping, visiting, and any number of other things. There is already some exciting stuff happening with this and we are already investing so that we can be ready in the future, (I can hardly wait to tell you about that). It also makes financial sense to be able to fix our bikes with three boys who are likely to try riding down cliffs, stairs, and anything in between. It is good to have a practical skill to help people.
However, these advantages notwithstanding, this is really a small step on a personal journey of learning to take more risks and try things. Watch this space for the succeses, and the failures.
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