There are millions of color combinations in the world. Maybe billions. But if you want to buy a 24-inch beach cruiser girls bike, it seems there are only three choices: pink, pale blue, and light green. <\/p>\n
Somebody explain this to me. <\/p>\n
I know this because I\u2019ve been in the bike shopping business for a couple of months now. My daughter, as she is rudely known to do, keeps growing. The last time she went to ride her bike, she resembled a gorilla on a toy. Her knees jutted out so far that they looked like wings. <\/p>\n
\u201cChild,\u201d I said, \u201cthis bike is done!\u201d <\/p>\n
But 24 inches is an odd size with major color limitations. Obviously those three colors sell best \u2014\u00a0I can\u2019t argue with that \u2014\u00a0but my daughter isn\u2019t in to any of them, and the search is driving me nuts. <\/p>\n
As a kid, I don\u2019t remember having an awful lot of color choices. For little boys, color didn\u2019t really matter than much anyway. It would quickly be covered in a crust of mud, grease and probably my own blood. <\/p>\n
More important, at least for a boy like me, was that it looked \u201cmean\u201d \u2014\u00a0a dirt bike with attitude. The tires would have treads like angry teeth. The handle bars needed to be sturdy and cocked forward. The seat had to be tar black. And there couldn’t be any safety devices anywhere \u2014\u00a0no nighttime reflectors or foam pads keeping you from knocking your teeth out. (Knocking your teeth out was a badge of honor!) In fact, the best bike already had rust so there was the constant threat of tetanus. That\u2019s a true rebel bike!<\/p>\n
Bikes weren\u2019t meant for riding or looking good. I don\u2019t remember riding my bike or showing it off. I remember launching it off of wobbly ramps in the driveway. We made them from flimsy, termite-eaten plywood and concrete blocks that always seemed to be in good supply. (Where did we get all those concrete blocks? Did we steal them from construction sites!?!)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s obvious that children don\u2019t understand physics by how they build bike ramps. They\u2019re impossibly steep and teeter on wobbly blocks, ensuring that the first pass will end in spectacular fashion \u2026 and a trip to the hospital. As a buddy was loaded into the ambulance, I always remember thinking: \u201cWhy didn\u2019t that work? We pointed it straight up!\u201d<\/p>\n
That was what a bike needed to be. <\/p>\n
But I\u2019m finding bike shopping with my daughter \u2014\u00a0a 10-year-old \u2014\u00a0is a different experience. It\u2019s all about color now, and since she isn\u2019t digging any of them, we keep hunting for the perfect one. <\/p>\n
Truth is, if she saw one of those mud-crusted BMX death bikes somewhere, she would probably take it. And I wonder how she would feel about launching it over a sketchy ramp with \u201chospital visit\u201d written all over it? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are millions of color combinations in the world. Maybe billions. But if you want to buy a 24-inch beach cruiser girls bike, it seems there are only three choices: pink, pale blue, and light green. Somebody explain this to me. I know this because I\u2019ve been in the bike shopping business for a couple of months now. My daughter, as she is rudely known to do, keeps growing. The last time she went to ride her bike, she resembled a gorilla on a toy. Her knees jutted out so far that they looked like wings. \u201cChild,\u201d I said, \u201cthis bike is done!\u201d But 24 inches is an odd size with major color limitations. Obviously those three colors sell best \u2014\u00a0I can\u2019t argue with that \u2014\u00a0but my daughter isn\u2019t in to any of them, and the search is driving me nuts. As a kid, I don\u2019t remember having an awful lot of color choices. For little boys, color didn\u2019t really matter than much anyway. It would quickly be covered in a crust of mud, grease and probably my own blood. More important, at least for a boy like me, was that it looked \u201cmean\u201d \u2014\u00a0a dirt bike with attitude. The tires would have treads like angry teeth. The handle bars needed to be sturdy and cocked forward. The seat had to be tar black. And there couldn’t be any safety devices anywhere \u2014\u00a0no nighttime reflectors or foam pads keeping you from knocking your teeth out. (Knocking your teeth out was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[554,562,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-nutshells","category-childhood","category-parenthoodandchildren"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1283,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions\/1283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}