The Quest for a Bike

It takes me 10 - 15 minutes to walk to my bus stop every morning, depending how lazy I feel. And then I wait for however long it takes for the bus to appear, and take a nice 15 minute bus ride to school. This wouldn't be too bad if it didn't severely cut into my sleep time. Waking up at 7:15 for a 9 am class is ridiculous. One of my housemates bought a bike a few weeks ago, and he said that it only takes him 15 minutes to bike to the center of campus. When I heard this, I wanted a bike immediately. Also, if I biked to class, I'd get a 6 km bike ride in every day, which makes me think I'll be working out a bit! Also, the bus pass is expensive, 75 euro for a 30 day pass. I would need at least 2 more passes if I took the bus everyday, so I made up my mind. I needed a bike.

For better or for worse, I'm a very cheap person.

My house mate bought a new bike for 195 euro. There is no way I was going to spend that much so I looked on websites like gumtree and donedeal for ad's about people getting rid of used bikes. This search may have been more frustrating than it was worth, but I couldn't force myeslf to buy a bike for full price. On these websites some people would post their numbers, some would just be via email. I wasn't very comfortable actually calling people, so I would either email or resort to texting.

After two days of that I realized I wasn't actually getting anywhere, so I gave in and called some one about a bike I was interested in. A creepy sounding guy picked up and said we could meet later that night in the center of the city. This was great news for me, and I forced my guy housemate to come with me. I called the man when I was at the meeting spot, but I got no answer. I tried again, same thing. A few minutes later I got a text explaining that he didn't have the bike because his friend took it, but he would bring it to my house later if I wanted to still see it. I was creeped out enough, so I decided against it...

From then on I didn't call anyone about bikes. I was too sketched out. I stuck to email and texting. I had three other encounters with setting up a meeting time for a bike and being strongly disappointed when I would get a text a bit later saying they were sorry but the bike was sold. One of the times was probably my fault though, I tried to bargin with the girl... Let's just say I'm not very good at it. The search was not going well...

Just when I was about to give up, I looked once more on gumtree.ie and texted a girl about her bike. It was purple-pink... But we don't have to get into the color... She agreed to meet with me later that day. And unlike the other person I contacted, she actually came! I rode it to make sure it was working, and it came with a lock. The price was good, and substantially lower than 195 euro. I'm also hoping I can sell it back at the end of my stay. So now I am a proud owner of a bike! (Picture below, if you weren't sure...)