The Bicycle

“Is this the bicycle you purchased?”, the detective with the rolled-up sleeves asked.

For a moment, I really wasn't sure how I should answer. I began thinking back to the very beginnings of the bike, to the Big Bike Bang—the day I first met Betty the bicycle.

I remembered the day when I bought Betty like it was yesterday, even though it was more than 120 years ago.

In spite of being ageless, I’m not immune to sentimentality.

It all started with a flat tire. Back then, the norm was to patch the tube. They had these rubber patches specifically made for the job, especially during the bike bubble days when it looked like the bicycle was going to take over the world. You could almost always patch the tube, but there was one instance when I hit a particularly rough stretch of cobblestone road. The wheel bent right around the tube and into the hard rubber exterior.

Normally, even this would just mean working hard on bending the wheel back into shape (which I did), patching the inner tube, and …