On Saturday I put an exercise bike on the corner. It was a $49 bike I bought from Amazon for Tabata training. The bike’s tension strap broke after about half an hour of use. I did a somewhat effective duct-tape repair on the strap but unfortunately the bike sat, mostly unused, in the basement for over a year. A few nights ago I stubbed my toe on the thing. I’m sure that’s what spurred me to put it up for adoption.
I asked Julia to put the words “FREE” and “WORKS!” on a large piece of paper and then I hung the sign on the handlebars. It sat out for about an hour. A middle-aged woman and man stopped and the lady got on the bike and pedaled for a bit. She got off and shook her head and they left the bike there with its hopes needlessly elevated. Soon after that it started to rain so I put it in the garage for a bit.
When the rain stopped, I put the bike back out on the corner. At this point, we all lost interest in the fate of the exercise bike. We stopped peeking out the windows to see if we had any nibbles. We occupied ourselves with other things. After about an hour, only Allie remembered the bike was outside and she noticed it was gone.
Whenever something disappears off our corner I always imagine what happens to it. I had fairly mundane fantasies about what happened to our table or chairs, but an exercise bike – that’s different. There are so many possibilities. I’m hoping it’s been strapped to a modified flux capacitor and once you pedal to 12.5 MPH you’ll time travel. You’ll be a little winded and maybe sweaty when you make the leap, but it’s a great way to get into shape while you’re changing the course of humanity.
On second thought, that’s a little grandiose for a $49 exercise bike. It would probably generate little leaps. Maybe a day or an hour or two. Enough time to get some lottery numbers or maybe just prevent a dropped casserole from ruining the rug in the McFly’s dining room.
This is awesome! Next I should set out an old toilet and see what happens.
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