The Grey Beginning

So it's summer and hot and sticky and nasty and my 11 year old, A, and I decided it was high time to get her a bike she could ride.

The piece of purple Schwinn loveliness she was so happy to get passed down when she was 7 years old and less than 4' tall just doesn't cut it now that she's 11 and visibly taller than her mom.

But my mother has several older bikes in her garage--mine from high school, mine after college, my brother's from high school...you get the picture, right?

So, off we went to reclaim my "after-college bike" and see if one of the high school bikes is in good enough shape for A to ride.  And we get there and start gingerly shifting through piles of who-knows-what that fill up my mom's garage and... stops short, "I want that one!" (remember, she's 11, not 3, "I want that one!" is much more serious at her age) and she stops and stares at the 1973 or 74 (or there abouts) Columbia Sports III that my mom used to tool about on with me in a child carrier on the back.

To the best of my knowledge, this bike hasn't seen daylight, much less good use, since approximately 1977 (and yes, I am referring to this 1977:

Pic from 15 Minute Lunch which is
perhaps the single most stupidly funny blog post ever.

enough said, right?)

But the thing is, the bike is actually a thing of beauty, isn't it? and in all its early '70's wonder, it is a whole lot more Trixie Belden meets Sandra Dee than it is the polyester-3-piece-pant-suit vision up there...and suddenly I can't imagine anything more perfect for A.

Which is good, because A had instantly decided that there couldn't be anything more perfect for her already.

So now we have a bike.  And a project.  And a whole big adventure awaits!