Some time in 2004 I bought a bike, that over the course of only 12 months, six of which it lived in the basement, turned into a piece of crap. You get what you pay for as they say, so I've no regrets over the purchase and sure enough the bike did serve me well during our time together. However, the time has come to get rid of the bastard. Method of disposal options are as follows:
I could sell it though I'm sure the $30 I'd get would be small compensation for the hassle involved. I could trade it in as part payment for a new set of wheels, but again the hassle of dragging it any distance can't be justified. I could give it to a local charity shop, no excuse why I shouldn't.
The plot thickens. I could throw it into a tree that lies below a nearby bridge over the Mississippi River. This tree is already full of old pairs of shoes that people have laced together and cast up into the branches. It's quite a cool thing to drive by or stand under and gawk up at literally hundreds of pairs of used shoes dangling and swaying with the motion of the tree. God knows why it began or who started it. You never see anyone actually hurling shoes at the tree yet there are more every time I look. Only recently I noticed that bikes had begun to populate the tree. There were only four or five last time I looked down over the bridge but it's obvious that something new has begun.
So, my fourth option would be to fling the bike over the edge of a bridge into a tree, but I'd rather use it as apparatus in an experiment. An experiment that will confirm or shatter some beliefs I have about Minneapolis. I've always known that the neighborhood I live in is pretty pleasant. The level of that pleasantness could never really be quantified... until now. Petty crime is what really gets to people. It wears you down, pisses you off, instills distrust between you and your neighbors. Sad to say but not long after, say, a murder, a neighborhood will recover. But, when you live on a street where plants are getting swiped from your garden, your car radio is getting robbed on an every two or three year basis, your shed is getting broken into you then live in a constant state of apprehension and suspicion and maybe even paranoia. That's Dublin. People here don't believe me when I tell them that if I left a cold, moldy, cup of tea in my front garden back home, that some scumbag would lift it the second my back was turned. The Irish rogue sees all the angles and some times you nearly admire his ability to engineer and execute the theft of objects worth no more than the price of a few pints.
Believing that petty but persistent crime is directly related to quality of life and mental well being I decided to leave my unwanted bike unlocked outside my apartment door just to see what makes the American criminal mind tick and more importantly to see if this neighborhood is as nice as it appears on the surface.
Nearly three months have passed and the bike still stands outside the door. Cobwebs stretch between various parts of the frame and rust is turning once shiny steel to a a dull red-brown color. Grass that couldn't be cut by the lawnmower because of the bike being in the way is starting to weave itself around the wheels.
I'm starting to think that nature will consume the bike before it falls victim to robbery. Conclusion thus: not a bad place to live.
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