Cream Dreamsicle

Excitement. Real excitement. Simmering, bubbling, and feeling the electricity radiate out into fingers and toes. It was uncontainable when I was a child, and I would sometimes lose control of the excitement and it would carry me spinning around like a gyroscope until I wobbled and fell into an exhausted heap. 

Lately, I've been touching on that kind of excitement again. It's a bike. A bike that I've only daydreamed about for the past couple of years. Actually, I daydreamed about the less exciting, more pragmatic upgrade to my regular bike that seemed the only reasonable and affordable possibility. But now I'm actually waking in the morning to realize I've been dreaming about my dream bike (and not just the pragmatic upgrade).

A stroke of amazing luck, I found the dream bike for sale (used) and in my price range. Too good to be true? Almost, it was about 1,200 miles away. It's taken nearly a month of phone calls, texts, and emails with a good friend and a couple of bike shops -- but the bike is finally at my local bike shop. 

Box 1

It's such a long bike. It was shipped in two boxes.

 Box 2

There're wheels and a box of tidbits too. My local bike shop also tunes skis and snowboards, and rents ice skates. So now we wait until the winter business slows down long enough for enough time to assemble the bike.

It has probably has been ridden once in it's life (according to the previous owner) and in places it shows. But the bike also shows that it was poorly assembled and slightly abused. The crank arm pedal threads are stripped. And the grip shifter on the handlebar is cracked. And the freeloaders (the fancy panniers) reek of cigarettes. But whatever. I don't care. I'm just glad she's here. And now she'll be loved, and ridden, and cared for, and dreamt about.

When I stopped by the shop yesterday to meet her for the first time, the owner called her a "Cream Dreamsicle". He has no idea I've actually been dreaming about the bike, although the name is pretty fitting. Don't you think?