Living in the city of Nuremberg very downtown, I use my bike for short distances - let's say for a radius up to 3 km (kilometers (we don't have miles here))- in short distances it's often quicker than riding by car & you don't have parking problems (which anyway I don't have, because I have no car) - for longer distances within town, subway & tram is (semi)-convenient enough for medium sized Nurembergian distances, where almost everything I need in daily life is easy to reach)- so why pay taxes, gas & insurance for a car I may only need for seldom weekend trips to country side? -
So my most extraordinara cute violet-lilac city bike
it's a ladies' bike (Damenfahrrad) or should I say she-bike - (not that these bikes copulate & reproduce little bikes over night).
Since my youth I prefered lady bikes, because they'r much more comfortable to use - u can get up & off very easy - on a so-called man's bike (Herrenfahrrad) it's difficult to bring your leg over the rod these bikes have & you can't just jump easily off if in need.
This archaic tradition set in times when women still wore frocks 'n' skirts & it's probably a problem for a skirted woman riding on bikes with this vertical bar from saddle to driver & maybe the bar between her legs also was thought as immoral (like the saddle anyway) just like they once invented the side saddle on horses for ladies -
but since the 'difference' doesn't count anymore since long time - still most males use men's bikes & women ladies' bikes just because they still have this sex different names.
I think most men are ashamed to own a ladies' bike. - Well in this case I'm an absolutely shameless man prefering the convenience of a she-bike. Bikes shouldn't have genders anymore!
& why my bike is violet? - This flamboyantly colour protects it from being stolen. - Here in Nuremberg already 2 bikes got stolen from me, but he would steal a bike with such striking colour?
How do I come to write about my good old trusty bike today? (I have it since about 10 years now only one gear is working still & the lights are permanently out of function) - this evening while Iwent out for a ride - means went to the backyard to get my bike there to visit x, I wanted to unlock it, but scatterbrained like I am, I had before forgotten to lock it & so again absentmindedly I locked it instead & then while mounting it & starting to ride it noticed that it was barred.
& this had happened already sometimes to me. - You know - a million times you lock it while you leave it - you unlock it while you take it for a ride - same procedure as always - I take out the key of my (left) pocket & the rest is automaticly - it's like dialing a telefone number of a close person you call about every day - your fingers know the number, not the brain - I just put the lock of the steelwire ring lock of the bike from one state to other - so about always if I forget to lock it while leaving it, it's sure that I automatically lock it next time I want to use it.
So this made me think, to write about it in my diary - that's typical for us bloggers, diarians & folk like that. - About every day I have some themes in mind I'd like to write about - I write them already in my mind - some, but not all I some chance later may write down or start to write down in some text-editor files (just using simple notepad) - a lot of them got never finished - I start it & may will continue later or am not convinced - or find them later out of time. Sometimes (well very rarely still) I don't know about a theme whether I had already it already written in my diary or maybe just scribbled it down in a forgotten text file or maybe just have thought about it to write it down.
So please inform me if I'm beginning to repeat myself
By the way: this best bike in endurance & faithfulness I have ever had, (which means that it didn't rust down nor got stolen in about a decade)
I once bought from a friend (an Indian items loving, cat woman) in Bayreuth for 50 DM plus the ticket for the train: 20 DM - that's 70 DM = about 35 Euros = about 40 bucks US money. - The bike I had bought for 200 DM some years before, lasted only 2 years..
& of course my trusful violet bike comes to me whereever I am if I whistle for it (Other imaginary adventures of my violet lady bike you'll find in Volume II of my collected violet bike stories.)