That first bike
It may live in the garage, but part of it always stays somewhere else.
There’s something about your first bike. I remember when I upgraded from my first bike (as an adult) and the guy at the bike shop told me to “put it on eBay and you’ll get a few hundred bucks for it.”
But I couldn’t. It wasn’t just a piece of aluminum; it was the bike I’d discovered some of my favorite roads on. So I kept it. And this week, while my current bike was in the shop, I pulled it out and rode it.
Now, I know it’s an inanimate object, but there was something about riding Bailey Road on it, as I did for the first time 10 years ago. It’s a piece of aluminum, shaped exactly like my current bike, but there’s something that defies definition.
And maybe that’s because it has nothing to do with the metal and everything to do with where it lives in my head.