The Great Bicycle Debacle of 2008

My oldest son, Ryan, is in Cub Scouts. A few weeks ago they did a family bike ride so the boys could earn a bicycling belt loop. We all 'decided' (read: cajoled the hubby and the youngest kid) to go as a family. It was really fun except....

As I was riding along on my snazzy purple bike, I noticed I was having a hard time turning because something kept hitting my front wheel.

Turns out it was my foot.

WTF?

The front tire was SUPER close to the pedals and every time I turned, my sneaker got caught on it. (No, my feet aren't just really ginormous.)

I figured in my haste to buy a bike about a year ago, I must have grabbed a frame that was too small for me. I got it at Target and they don't really let you test drive a bike before you buy it. Before it hits the pavement, you gotta fork out the mula for it. I hadn't ridden the bike much in the past year so I never noticed the pedal issue before.

In the meantime, after the foot-tire debacle, I went out and bought another bike because now we are taking (coerced) family bike rides a lot. (Okay and because I suffer from retailaholism). I offered my other bike to my niece, Jordan, because it is purple there is no way in hell either of my boys will be caught dead on it. (Wimps.)

Jordan's dad, Paul, was checking the bike out the other day and about flipped off the bike when HIS foot caught on the pedal. He ended up with a big scrape down his shin.

We all got to looking at the bike and realized the pedals actually TOUCH the front tire.

Okay, I'm no bike expert but that seems, well, dangerous.

As we were heatedly discussing what a horrible manufacturing defect this was, and how could there not be some sort of recall on this bike, blah blah, blah...Paul flipped the front wheel around.

Low and behold.

The a$$hats at Target put the handle bars on THE WRONG WAY ROUND when they assembled the bike.

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb...mystery solved.

So now Jordan has a new purple bike. And I have a new blue bike with a BIG seat and higher handle bars. Aching butts and backs are no good at all.