Buying a bike shouldn't be this hard...

You remember when you used to ride a bike when you were a little kid. When you got a bike as a child, you got your real first taste of freedom. Now you could going to Bobby's house without one of your parents driving you there. In a sense, it was the minor leagues of learning to live without your parents. No way were you old enough to do most things on your own, but you could now ride to the next neighborhood and experience sweet, sweet freedom.

And back then the bike you had was probably pretty simple. If you were lucky it might have been a 3 speed or something, but most kids had single speeds with the pedal backwards thing to brake. I bring this up because since living in Madison, I've rediscovered the joy of riding a bike. I currently ride a road bike that has like 18 speeds and weighs like a ton because it's made of steel. Despite the fact that it's a beast though, I paid only a couple of hundred dollars for it and I enjoy riding it. Before I had a truck to share with a friend, it was my major form of transportation when it was warm.

Now that it is getting warm again, I want to buy a nice road bike to take longer rides on. As with most things that involve spending hundreds of dollars, I am totally indecisive. I surf the interwebs reading about bikes and get completely confused. Going to the bike store is just as confusing too. There are so many bikes. The bike jokers are throwing jargon around like it's the cool thing to do, and I end up feeling like a moron because I don't know what to do. Sometimes I wish someone would just tell me what to buy when I want to buy something. Then I could blame them when I don't like it.

As of now, I still haven't bought a bike. There were two instances recently when I almost bought one. I went to this thing called Bike-O-Rama and saw a bike for a really good deal. It fit, but I wasn't ready to buy. Of course when I went to the bike shop yesterday looking for it, it was gone. Classic Raj. I also found a used bike on Craigslist. Everything was hunky dory except the damn thing was too big. Classic karma for Raj. While I hate shopping, I hate not feeling good about what I buy. So I take my time and remain indecisive.