Her head turns sideways. Sometimes her eyes roll, and most often the corner of her lip peels down as her head pulls back into her neck like a chicken half way through its pecking a piece of feed.All of this happens before any real verbal expression, but you can most always notice a pause of breath as she (and I say she because this lovely lass was the only one I could convince to recreate that look that can only be summarized as befuddlement) begins to comprehend the fact that I have nine bicycles.
Surely you can relate. Bar talk. Dinner parties. Family gatherings. You’re ‘The Bike Guy’ at the event. Since you spend more time on your bike than you do indoors (which is where they inevitably gather), that’s the only thing they know about you. Bicycles are the only subject they can find that seems safe enough.
“Yeah, nine,” you say. You then begin to process the number and turn your mind to thinking that these rational people haven’t benefitted from a healthy spin down a cobbled and dusty road in years. “No…nine really isn’t enough.”
Town, ‘cross, road, your first mountain bike, the loaner bike, your 29er hardtail, the 5” full-suspension bike, that new fat bike, the beater bike…
It’s about this time in your thinking that you realize she’s stopped talking. And you’re still stuck on that new disc brake ‘cross bike that you put on hold the other day… and that soon, I will have ten bicycles.