There are many possible morals to this story...

I imagine what a prospective adoption parent must go through and feel. When you finally get your baby it just has to seem absolutely perfect to you. Then after a couple of weeks you notice it's imperfections but you deal with them. I have been through this sort of thing with my bike the last two weeks.

All little boys love their bikes. When I got this shiny red bike it was love at first sight. It was awkward pedaling at first but I attributed that to my declining motor skills and physical conditioning. And I did get better at riding it. But this bike did present ongoing challenges. It was hard to control, especially at start up and lower speeds. It also seemed harder to pedal than I felt it should have been. I felt from day one that the front wheel was too close to me and even commented on that to Karen. I noticed on our rides together that there were times she was coasting but I had to keep pedaling to keep up with her. A boy having to ride harder to keep up with a girl? I would not have survived childhood if that had been the way it was back then. I was starting to think of ways I could modify the bike. Maybe adding a banana seat or new handle bars, something to make this ride right. It never occurred to me that maybe it something was not assembled correctly...until yesterday.

I have shared how we got our bikes. We bought them, at a good price, fully assembled from a guy who buys them at auctions. He is a nice guy but not a bike shop owner. If you scroll down to the bottom of this page you can see our bikes. Notice the fork that holds the front tire. It has slight crook in it that extends away from the pedals. My bike was assembled with the fork backwards! This shortened my wheel base and caused all the problems I listed above. All I had to do was loosen a nut and turn the fork and handlebars in the correct direction. I did this and a light shone from above and a dove flew down to my shoulder and a voice from heaven said " It's about time you figured that out Einstein!"

So of all the possible morals to this story I choose to go with "All's well that ends well".

I'm back Wednesday with the weigh in... off and pedaling for now.