"Them Bikes Women Ride Ain't the Real Kind"

I don't know what the male customer who said this to me meant, exactly, as the only two bikes he mentioned owning were an old Schwinn cruiser that's almost too rusty to function and a unicycle. There is absolutely nothing wrong with unicycles, but I wouldn't classify them as "real bicycles," as the prefixes "bi-" and "uni-" are meant to differentiate the two.

I do know from personal experience that at least one woman out there rides a real bike (and she rides it real fast), because I spent a good portion of one of last fall's single-speed cross races behind her, trying to keep up. Wait, perhaps this is what the male customer meant, because if I recall, her drivetrain was what they call "new-fangled:"

and perhaps he was making an argument that a bicycle driven by means other than chains are not "real bicycles." In fact, it was this drivetrain that failed her, allowing me to overtake her for perhaps a minute, which was when I heard a sound akin to this:

In the time it took me to pull over and pee my pants, she'd pulled a hundred yards ahead of me. I survived, I think, because I was holding very still, and her predator eyes had focused on an animated racer further down the course. I would certainly like to see the man who said women don't ride real bikes on his rusty cruiser, and then see that very fast woman pass him so quickly that he caught on fire.

Here are some other things I heard uttered in the shop this week.

One

Customer: "I bought this here yesterday, and it's broken."

Me: "Actually, we don't sell that here. Do you think you could've been in the shop a couple of blocks down the street?"

Customer: "No it was here. The guy who was here said it was the last one."

Me: "I was the guy here yesterday, and I'm pretty sure I've never sold one of those."

Customer: "No, it wasn't you, it was that other guy."

Two

Me: "There seems to be a strange substance on your chain."
Customer: "Oh, that's sexy lube. Should I not use that?"

I guess either she keeps her sexy lube in the garage or her bicycle in the bedroom. I sold her a bottle of chain lubricant, and god knows what that's being used for right now. At least we know it can't be a real bicycle.