ZEN AND THE ART OF BIKE MAINTENANCE

My ex-husband was really into bike maintenance. He had all these tools and on weekends he'd take one of his two bikes apart, clean the various components, and then put them back together again. He would do this while drinking copious amounts of coffee and listening to NPR. I never really got it. I would usually walk into our living room, littered with ball bearings and Allen wrenches, and observe him the same way I might observe a manatee or pangolin struggling with the same task. It was such a curious sight. I was bewildered by his zeal. I never understood the fascination with bike mechanics.

Until now.