April’s Bicycle

Speaking of good timing, so there was the bike I recently purchased. I kind of wanted a project as well, and it was just the thing. Some few years old, bought at auction, never been tuned up since the day it was bought. And an automatic. Yes, that’s right. An automatic shifting bike. It has weights in the back tire that utilize centrifugal force to push the gear-angle mechanism into a lower (or is that higher?) gear.

So I see this bike. And I’m like, yes! I’ll take it. Good price and the project to come with it. The day I get it, I bike it all around town. Down to the park, over to my buddy’s place, to the bar across the river, then on back to my house. Starts it tour at 2 p.m.

Finally, end of the night, riding nice and slow back from the bar, down the road, across the grain stacks, to the signstop, across the train tracks- clonk! clonk! clonk! Fizz.
Two in the morning. One block from home. The chain falls off.

And of all things. A new bike, this wondrous machine to be driven about, to “assist” in travel or transportation, through the open air, so efficient and clean ideal.

I carry a busted machine the final block.