The Zero bike
 

We all know what n+1 means.

So I'm texting a buddy of mine awhile back, telling him I'm travelling down to his neck of the woods on business, and thinking of shipping a bike down. I've got enough not to miss one up here. My new job probably means I'd be down his way a few times a year and miss riding, so why not keep it in his garage? My own personal "visitors" bike, as it were. Somehow my text spell checker changes a word, not sure I remember what I was trying to say, to "zero", so the text came out as something like "I'll send a zero bike down to you.". He thought, yeah, a zero bike, as the one your wife doesn't know about cause you store it at a friend's house.

So I'm thinking this may be a loophole I've discovered. When you start to approach the dreaded s-1, all you need is a friend in the same situation. When no one's looking, swap a couple of bikes. Next time the significant other asks why you need so many bikes, and you've run out of standard excuses (that one's my commuter, that one's for dirt, that one's blue...) you can just tell her, "naw, that's so-and-so's bike, he just left it here the other day".

You're riding with that buddy often enough that you just go over "to visit", but you're really going riding.

I think I've discovered an important theorem here, thusly,

n+0=n

This is new to you?

When karma gifted me the Zeus, the wife learned that "it's headed out to Port Angeles." A 100% true statement, for now.
Then there's the one at my sister's, and one at a brother's house.

I would store one in Portland, but which one? Maybe it should be two....or N+1.


shame [MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION] is so short.....and hates o-rings.

I have a zero bike, just didn't know that's what it was. This is in Phoenix patiently awaiting my next visit:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4389/3...0b13e087_b.jpg

Because I don't have the burden of justifying my purchases to anyone, my zero bike is pretty much just to have a personal bike at a place I visit fairly often. That's good enough for me :)

DD

Oh - a bike for when you "go to the mattresses"!

That's nothing. Try doing it with cars. I currently have an Austin Healey in my friend's garage.

Back when I was commuting on CalTrain up and down the peninsula to various teaching gigs, I'd leave bikes parked at the train stations, which I'd use to complete my commute.

Hmm, I might have even left a few there some 27 years ago.

Haha, I like the term. I keep a bike at work just to relieve some space at home, kinda of similar, but it doesn't count as zero because those close to me knew damn well why it's here.

Sure, your colleagues know about it, but as long as your significant other doesn't...

It's a Zero bike.

Here's my very 'zero bike' in Arkansas.
No pic of the nearly-Nashville 'zero bike'.
If it's NOT in my signature line, it's ZERO.

Oh, wow! I didn't know I was harboring a fugitive. Now that Zeus seems a whole lot cooler, somehow. I thought it was just some old crap that came your way and you couldn't quite decide what to do with it. Send me some more parts, we'll get that thing going :thumb:

Hey, I should get off my ass and do the same!

My brother is in town in a couple days and wants to visit the Kitsap Peninsula. Hmmm...

DD

Never underestimate your significant other's ability to see through a veil of BS(advice from a guy who has been married to the same gal for 49 years).

If there is such a thing as a Zero bike, then this early eighties Bianchi is the only one I can claim ownership of, and it waits for me in the hills of Jamaica...

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4295/...889aa3dd_z.jpg

I don't know, subterfuges to get around the SO, and increasing clutter at a friend's abode, sound like a good way to lose both the SO and the friend . . . for some, making complicated plans for going to the mattresses ends up at sleeping with the fishes.

Well, I suppose it's one way to find out how good a friend you have. They say a good friend will help you move, and a really good friend will help you move a body.

I suppose the cycling corollary to that could be "A good friend will help you hide; a really good friend will help you hide a bicycle." :)

I like your math, [MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION].

troll!!

I have 0+0=0

I may not be old enough or there enough mentally, but I couldn't do a zero bike even if the opportunity is there. I like mine all too much to be far away, 'detached,' from them. 'Twould make me quite sad. No abandoning things that I have set out to rescue, keep, and maintain!

Ah, but parting is such sweet sorrow.

Four, five times a year, when I visit my inlaws' house in Gig Harbor, I get reunited with this beauty:

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4325/...25dcac53_z.jpg

It's my "zero bike," and she has my full attention when I am there. Very nearly the perfect bike for the local terrain, I can hardly wait to get reacquainted with her each time I'm out there. I like my inlaws well enough, but they basically sit around the house all day every day, and this bike transports me from that. :)

Try dragging a bike with you every time you travel. I ride in Thunder Bay Ontario, Winnipeg Manitoba, Calgary Alberta, Willow River BX and Jamaica. I am tired of carrying a bike with me every time I go visit kids or move to the villa in Jamaica where I live in the winter. Hence, a bike stored at each of these locations makes great sense to me. And...

Taking a bike with me on an airplane cost quite a bit, there and back.

This, exactly:eek:. I'd rather haul a bike around the get one discovered I had hidden from the wife (only 41 years in our case:innocent:) And, I ain't ever flying with a bike ever again, after last April's molestation by AA when I had followed every single point in their "bike in case as checked luggage" trap. Still hit me up for oversized and delicate charges, never again. I'll drive for days before I fly anywhere on an airline. Money hungry, power mad cretins. /end rant mode/

My wife doesn't have an inventory of my bikes (whose does?) but she sees a pile and does notice when there's another one. Moving one out to a friend's house creates an empty hook in the garage...

I don't know what it is but it looks awesome ( and my size! ).

EDIT: I wish I had a place to stash a couple bikes. I have two new ones showing up that I haven't confessed to yet....

I understand that most of this thread is tongue-in-cheek but there is a facet of it that comes off a bit pathetic.