Our oldest has been getting around on my old bike, a Peugeot Orient Express I inherited from my stepdad when I moved to Seattle back in 1990. I got a hell of a lot of use out of that bike and put hundreds of miles on it, and I continued to use it once in a while once I moved here. I had passed it on to J*stin, and he has ridden it to death, and it has been in the shop about every six months for the last few years.
Anyway, this week it kinda died. The seat broke off of the post, and the post is wedged so tightly into the frame that the bike shop can't get it out. We took it to a different place, and the guy there basically said it would take a long time to get the post out and get a new one in, involving a lot of effort. He said for the cost of the service, it would be cheaper to just buy a new bike. Given the quality of my old bike, we could buy a brand new bottom-of-the-line multi-speed bike for about $150-$200, which approaches the cost of the labor on the Peugeot, and the old bike could also use a tune-up, which is also adding to the cost, etc.
So I found a serviceable bike, test rode it, got it all tuned up and ready to go, and bought it for J*stin to get around this summer. I really wish I could trust him in a car just because it would be more convenient for us all, but he's just not there yet mentally. I would really like him to remain carless until he gets out of college and has a full-time job at some level.
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