Rumi says...

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, How much is that? Oh, I'm just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping,
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much?"

Even if you don't know what you want,
Buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a large, foolish project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

Every time I have walked into a bike shop in recent weeks and told them my plan, this poem comes to mind. I say I am planning to ride 300 miles across the Negev desert. I tell them I have never ridden more than a dozen miles before. I mention that the ride will be in November. They give me a quick once over, and invariably say, "You've got time."

Implicit is, "You've got a lot of work to do."

That is why I have been so anxious to make this bike purchase as quickly as possible.

The learning curve has been steep since I walked into Palo Alto Bicycles it must have been Tuesday, March 18th asking them to repair a badly frayed and swollen tire on my third hand Gary Fisher mountain bike. (I was so far down the learning curve at that point that I didn't even know that what I was riding was a mountain bike.) The mechanic looked at the tire, the rusty components, the worn saddle, and the grimy chain and made a quick calculation in the hundreds of dollars to put the bike in operating order.

He listened to my story--how I liked to bike the 8 or 9 mile trail around the baylands, and how I aspired to take this immense road trip. His logic was flawless as he escorted me over to the hybrid bikes demonstrating that for a very few hundred additional dollars I could be riding a brand new machine far better suited to handle the highways and the hills as well as the trails. And it was red!

I would have been sold right there on the spot had I the time and the riding clothes required to test it out. I didn't buy the bike, but I did commit to myself to return ASAP.

Shomer Shabbes I am not, but I have always resisted most commercial activities on Saturdays as a rule. The following Shabbat I decided to invoke the exemption for "saving a life" and do everything I could to get a new bike--my passage to months, maybe years of exercise and improved physique. (That's the initial motivation of this particular foolish project.)

I started my search on Saturday at the shop I have frequented most in recent years--Mike's Bikes. It is closer to home than Palo Alto Bicycles and gets five stars from consumers. Palo Alto, on the other hand gets rave reviews from some and castigation from others. People see it as either the finest shop with the greatest commitment to excellence or as an effete purveyor to Peninsula elite.

I tried a few hybrids at Mikes--a Specialized and a Cannondale--both pricier than the bike I had seen at PA Bikes. I liked the Specialized. As soon as I rolled off the lot I sensed a lightness and speed I had not imagined possible when I had been pushing my mountain bike around. After trying those, I decided--just for the heck of it--to take a road bike out for a spin. I had no intention of buying one of these with their dropped handle bars. I liked the upright configuration of the hybrid. Trying the road bike was either the stupidest or the smartest thing I did in the past three weeks because one climb up Hanover Road and there was no going back to a hybrid. About six bike shops and many hundreds of dollars later I am the proud owner of a Specialized Roubaix Comp-Triple all-carbon frame road bike. Yes, there are bikes out there easily three and four times the price, but I am already in the stratosphere with this purchase. Remember, it all started with a bulging tire!

I'll spare all the agonizing details of my tortured selection process. At one point it seemed to come down to the design of the store jersey--in which case Palo Alto Bicycle with it's powerful green shirt would have won hands down. Ultimately, the bike I wanted there was not available in my size. After three lost Shabbats testing bikes I could taste a new bike and I wanted whatever bike it would be NOW. That menacing black Roubaix had just rolled into Mikes. One look at it and the dirty deed was done.

Today I took it for a leisurely twenty mile ride around and through Stanford with one of my biking mentors--Bruce Kahan. Riding the baylands paths in my beat up mountain bike had always rendered me a twelve year old. Climbing Page Mill road on this bad boy may be a bit too strenuous to have the same affect, but racing downhill at close to thirty miles per hour is a feeling all its own. Sweet!

I can't wait to slip my clips into the pedals tomorrow!