The little bike that could

This is a love story about my bike, the best bike that ever was.
So cool is this bike that in addition to it's name (Dawson) it also has an acronym S.R.B. (Shiny Red Bike).

Whenever I ride my S.R.B., usually along the Burke-Gilman trail, I always see all those bikers in neon spandex on their thousand-dollar road bikes stare at it in admiration, wishing their bikes had the coolness factor that mine does. They wish they could ride 30 miles round trip to Kenmore (like I did this week) using a ladybug bell to signal people that they're passing and have their own personal musical accompaniment, namely the heavy squeaking of the five gears as they're forced into action.

My S.R.B and I met on a hot summer's day in Dawson Creek, Canada in the middle of our months-long van trip in 2006. The only reason we stopped in Dawson Creek, Canada on our way up the Alcan Highway was because (and I'm vaguely ashamed to admit this, but not totally) I was obsessed with the teen angst show of the same name. (That was, of course, before Lost, The Best Show, Ever.)

Unfortunately, Dawson Creek in Canada is nothing like the reed-lined blue stream that Joey Potter used to paddle her boat across in Capeside. The Canadian creek is mostly a thin brown streak covered in mosquitoes and filled with trash. (Who knew Canadians littered?) But laying right next to a rusting metal shopping cart in the shallow waters was the S.R.B.

Even covered in muck you could tell it had the potential to be the best bike there ever was. We decided to rescue it. The problem was, the creek was down a fairly steep grass-covered slope and, in addition to trash, there were other sharp objects pointing up out of the creek that could potentially impale us as we reached for the bike.

Luckily, Steve is an engineer. So, he devised a long hook out of a coat hanger and some string and together, we began fishing for the bike. I went first and after several tries, managed to hook a spoke and pull the bike halfway up until it got caught in between two cement blocks and refused to move further. Steve took over from there and after much pulling, realized he would have to scale the cliff and actually pluck the bike from its cement captors. Which he did. By this time, we had an audience of three, curious Canadian boys one of which said, "Isn't that Joey's bike?"

The S.R.B., rescued from the lake, was covered in green slime but in surprisingly good condition. Everything worked, it was just dirty. Afraid the Canadian boys would go tell the Mounties and they would come galloping after us on their horses with no guns, we brushed it off quickly and strapped it to the back of the van.

That evening, in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Dawson Creek, (because that's where you stay when you're poor and on a cross-country van trip), I bathed it and Steve did whatever he does to things to make them work and I hopped on. It was like the bike was made specifically for me. It fit me perfectly and I've been obsessed with it ever since.

It traveled with us for the next six months, proudly collecting dirt on the back of the van during long stretches of driving. When we returned home, I promptly sold my other, much newer, show bike which I had only used a couple times. That one just didn't have the history.