The Mad Man's Journey to Health or at Least Something that Sounds Like it.

Sheri and I got bicycles for our 24th anniversary which we will be celebrating in July if we live that long. According to my exhaustive web research, the traditional 24th anniversary gift is supposed to be a musical instrument. Believe it or not, a bicycle fits well in this category as my thighs sang a chorus of "Ow, Ow, Ow" for my entire journey. The journey of which I speak was walking to the garage to retrieve my precious anniversary gift. Actually riding the bike was a different story entirely. Not better, just different.

I should start with a visual. Here is a recent photo. OK, that's not actually me but the likeness is remarkable. On a positive note, I have more hair. On the negative side, I have more chins. The culmination of my long and steady decline into a sedentary lifestyle was the indignity of purchasing "Relaxed Fit" jeans at Wal-Mart last week. They call them "Relaxed Fit" because if they called them "Jeans for the Bigger Butted Man", no one would buy them. The other indignity is that I'm certain that as I was bent over to get to the bottom shelf where Wal-Mart has decided that its husky customers should have to reach to find their "Relaxed Fit" jeans, someone snapped a picture of me to place on the notorious People of Wal-Mart website.

After finally making it to the garage (don't laugh, it's harder than it sounds, the grass was wet), I found my white whale. I probably should have just harpooned it and got it over with but unfortunately, my favorite harpoon is in the shop and my backup harpoon was back in the house. I decided that I wasn't making that trek again.

Speaking of treks, ironically enough, my new bicycle is also a Trek. If you want the full visual of the whale, you can see it here. Sheri's is the second one.

(As I was writing this, I came to the realization that cats do not chew their food. You do not want to know the details that led to this revelation.)

The word "trek" itself brings back many memories. As a child, I was a bona fide Trekkie. I played Star Trek with my friends. I attended many Star Trek conventions. I still have my first edition of Starlog magazine. Sheri and I met at OU while watching Star Trek. I was immediately attracted to her even though it was obvious to me that she had never attended a convention and probably never read Starlog. Looking back, those apparent shortcomings were probably blessings.

So now there's a new trek in my life. I'm afraid that this new trek can't be enjoyed from the safety and security of my Barcalounger. This new trek is going to make me boldly go to the garage and beyond. Did I mention that the grass was wet? It's also a long way from my house to my garage. It really is. It's a good 30 smoots (that's over 50 yards for you non-geeks) and its uphill! (and the grass was wet)

I've named my bicycle "Bones" as both an homage to DeForest Kelley and a reminder as to the part of my anatomy that will be in pain when I'm done riding. Bones is called a "hybrid" bicycle. That means that it's part bicycle and part rack only without the benefit of lying down.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the topography around my house, I live right next to a lake. One defining characteristic of most lakes is that they are generally the lowest point around. To me, this means that no matter which direction I leave from home, it's uphill. In my car, that isn't much of an issue. In my barcalounger, it isn't an issue at all. If I had succeeded in convincing Sheri that what we really needed was electric bicycles, it wouldn't have been an issue. Seated high atop Bones, it is a major issue.

Bones comes with 21 gears. They range from "I'm pedaling but the scenery isn't changing" to "Pulling a Hummer". Neither of these will be useful in getting me up Caddo county's version of Mt. McKinley. Yesterday, before I had been on Bones, I thought that with 21 gears to choose from, at least one of them and possibly even more would be useful for my arduous climb. For those of you that don't know, and I was certainly in this group, a 21 speed bike has 21 gear combinations. The dirty little secret that they don't tell you (until after you've made your purchase) is that of these 21 combinations; 5 shouldn't be used and 8 are THE SAME! Really Shimano? Your business model is to provide 21 of something when only 8 are useful? I'm relieved that the engineers at Ford didn't take that approach when designing the gearbox of my Focus.

Through an amazing feat of endurance that could best be described as a cross between "hyperventilation" and "crying", I made it to the top of Mount Caddo. Unfortunately, I was only about 400 smoots (you can do the math) from my driveway and my lungs were kaput. I blame the altitude.

I did manage to finish the rest of my 7 mile trek. Sheri beat me by a mere 8 miles but in my defense, I'm a wuss.