Old Bicycles and Ice Cream

A warning, for all you women out there, like me, who might think that they can still ride a bike just as easily as they did when the last time they rode a bike, even though that was when they were 12. Just because you're on vacation, and you think it is a fun idea to ride bikes around a pretty island in Maine, and just because you find a really really cute old timey bike that is a pretty red with a basket in the front and wheel covers and everything...don't be fooled into thinking that you can ride this bike.















(Actual girlie bike used. Awww....Isn't it cute?! Don't be fooled!!!)

There might be things you have neglected to factor into your bike picking process because you were too twitterpated at finding such a cute bike...like for instance...the quality of the brakes...and the fact that even though all the bikes were updated with gears, they were homemade gears, and there may only be two settings (not the 10 that we're assuming)...so you might only have two options: pedal so hard your knees feel like they are going to fall off in a puddley goo somewhere back at the giant hill you were forced to climb up when you went the wrong way, or pedal really easily and go so slow that a toddler in HIS (very practically) bike passes you.


The cute red bike with the basket in the front (to hold the helmet you couldn't use because you insisted on wearing long pants even though it's 80 degrees out and the helmet made you sweaty and even though you're married, you still don't want your husband to think "good gosh what did I marry?!?" when he sees you), IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! Not matter how cute it is!















(not actual helmet hair...but close!)


Do you really want to spend your whole bike riding experience secretly, jealously coveting your husband, who let's face it is the more practical and realistic of the two of you, who picked the newer, shinier, less cute but more practical bike, which didn't NEED to be upgraded because it already came with 10 (ten!!!) speeds and decent breaks, but not being able to tell him you're coveting his bike because you know he would all too easily trade you his bike for yours even though yours is girly and has a basket on it, because let's face it, he does enough things for you, riding around in a girly basket bike is not something he should have to endure.
















(Husband's very practical bike...see the newer shinierness of it!)


But then again, if you never picked the girly cute basket bike, and instead opted to hang out on the pier, you would have been forced to listen to really bad reggae music, and might have missed out on this...

















(actual view from bike on Peak's Island)


or this....















(more bike views)


And okay...if you hadn't gotten the deceptive girlie bike, you wouldn't have pedalled nearly as hard, and you wouldn't have gotten as much of a workout, and then you may not have gotten to eat a huge cup of well deserved and deliciously yummy Peak's Island ice cream guilt-free (not that I would have had much guilt anyway...but at least now I know food Karma is (temporarily) on my side).

(not actual ice cream...but I wish it was! Doesn't that look good?!)

So all in all...maybe you should pick the girlie painful bike. Because it's an experience. And gives you beautiful pictures to look back on. And it definitely trumps sitting on the couch watching Jon and Kate reruns wondering where their relationship went wrong (not that there is anything wrong with that!...shut up, it isn't wrong, I swear!).