Tuesday, May 01, 2007 Aguilar: Bike addicts By George Aguilar Rational Animal
IT'S summer time once more so I took out the old and aging bicycles from my home and brought it to the bike shop to have the interiors, the spokes, and tires changed, the wheels aligned and all the moving parts greased and conditioned. The bikes belong to my kids of course, although I enjoy using the black painted aluminum BMX every now and then. The others are a small steel bike with the training wheels attached for my four year old boy and a steel scooter with inflatable tires that deflates after 24 hours of use or non use.
As for my own bike, a dark green (almost black) waxed and polished mountain bike with rock shoxs, titanium chain, and a Shimano gear set, it is scheduled to get its twice a year overhaul the next day.
For a family whose idea of sports is mainly playing computer games while eating snacks during school days, we certainly have a lot of bicycles and scooters at home. We began to collect bikes and scooters shortly after I taught my eldest, a daughter, to bike with me round and around the subdivision.
I had a mountain bike then, basically the same one I still use today although many of the parts have been replaced and upgraded, and my daughter was only three years old. I bought her a small green bicycle with training wheels, biking gloves and a helmet. My daughter had her shares of scrapes and falls but soon she was speeding down the street like a drag racer on steroids.
One day while riding her bicycle the training wheels fell off but my daughter kept on biking as if nothing had changed.
I noted the grace and balance that my daughter displayed while riding a bicycle so I resolved to turn her into a true biker one day. By the time she was almost six years old my daughter would be riding a full sized BMX and we would forage out of the subdivision and take on the city streets. My wife accused me of turning our only daughter into a tomboy although I still can't fathom why.
She now has a scooter, a skateboard, a snorkeling gear of her own as well as the aluminum BMX with brand new racing tires to make full use of her vacation this summer. My four year old boy cries when my daughter and I would ride around and outside the subdivision because he and his toddler's bike just can't keep up.
He still has his training wheels on so it must be true that girls mature much faster than boys (when he grows up I'll buy him his own mountain bike for sure).
But our biking days end where school begins. So the bicycles were hardly ever used during regular school days. When I took out the old bikes last week they were in shamefully disgraceful condition.
Rust appeared in sensitive places and the tires were worn while spiders and fungi built their webs and colonies along the spokes and hard to reach places. Embarrassed I humbly brought the bikes to my mechanic at the bike shop in down town Bacolod and awaited the scorn and sermon from Junie, my mechanic and biking mentor, who had endeavored to teach me the art of bicycle maintenance to no avail.
Theoretically I can maintain my own bicycles if I wanted to. I have all the hardware and grease and oils back home. But there's nothing like a day at the bike shop. A dozen bystanders were there apparently doing nothing but talk, about bikes of course, while watching the mechanics do their thing.
Yes, I'm addicted to it too. While the mechanics tried their best to maintain small talk while aligning tires and changing and greasing the small moving parts, I would reply, as in a trance, while watching my bikes transform from aging decrepit junk to lean mean street machines. It's like undergoing therapy. As the bikes are made new so too am I renewed.
And it's not just me, my daughter was there too. The dozen or so bystanders also spent the whole afternoon there just watching my bikes, or any bike for that matter, remade.
It was hot and dusty at that small strip of concrete just outside the bike shop in down town Bacolod. Passers by looked down at us with scorn and apprehension, as if we were all good for nothing laggards who should be working or at home rather than just goofing around (which we were) but we all had the time of our lives.
Life is pleasant when spent with fellow bikers whose idea is to ride the bike for an hour or two then hang around the shop the whole day and talk about riding bicycles. Psychiatrists would call it an obsession unless they rode bikes too.
The dozen or so standbys came from all walks of life. Two of the standbys were college students, one was a doctor, and another was a lawyer, while the rest had professions unknown (probably psychiatrists or sociologists studying the odd group behavior).
I spent time and money lounging around the bike shop that day but it was well worth it. When I went home with my gleaming and well oiled machines I felt good deep down inside. I can't wait until it's time for me to bring the bikes back to the shop again.
Pass by the bike shop in front of Consuelos and see for yourself the many people who stand around and watch but do be careful. It's addicting.
