Holy bike gear Batman

Date: April 12
Mileage: 21
April mileage: 98
Temperature upon departure: 40
On the iPod: "We Are Nowhere, And It's Now" ~ Bright Eyes

eBay is an amazing thing. It brings the world's biggest garage sale to your doorstep, and whether you're a resident of New York or Alaska or Kalamazoo, it's yours for the taking if you want it enough.

Today Geoff stumbled across a listing for a huge lot of mountain bike gear. Absolutely mammoth. We're talking more gear than most ever dream of owning in their lifetimes, and then some. The seller is a chick who recently retired from racing, and she is unloading all of her stuff in one lump package. Her auction doesn't even list everything she is selling. It includes (and of course is not limited to):

* 10 different pairs of biking gloves
* 18 3/4 pairs of biking pants (don't ask me what the 3/4 implies)
* 20 pairs of shorts
* "Soooooo many tops" (her words)
* 3 vests
* 9+ jackets
* 9 half-tanks (what's a half-tank?)
* 10 hats
* 50+ pairs of socks
* and enough random maintenance stuff to get any century-a-day rider through the next decade.

It's excess in its most blatant form, thrown at the World Wide Web At Large for a starting bid of just $600. I gave it some serious thought. I mean it. There's a good chance this girl, a former racer, is smaller than I am. But I'm 130 pounds myself, so the difference is probably negligible enough that most of it would fit me, especially since some of the sizes are listed as "medium." But what in the world would I do with 18 3/4 pairs of cycling pants? Currently, I don't even own one pair. It's funny, actually. When it comes to consumer products, I inherited from my dad a kind of blanket practicality that borders on indifference. My current cycling repertoire (that is, my clothing that actually qualifies in the category of strictly cycling gear) includes:

* 3 pairs of well-worn bike shorts (well-worn in that every single pair went with me on a cross-country tour two and a half years ago, and I still have yet to buy new shorts)
* 2 long-sleeve bike jerseys, both generic
* 3 short-sleeve bike jerseys, also generic
* one pair short padded gloves
* one pair full padded gloves
* one helmet

Wow. That may actually be it. I don't even own clipless pedals, for crying out loud. I'm a sad case. Hopeless, as my mom would sometimes say when she tried to take me shopping. Not that I wouldn't like to own stuff. I really do appreciate the edge or comfort a really good piece of quality gear can provide. And I have been really diligent lately about buying stuff ... warm stuff ... stuff I needed to keep me alive.

But then this auction came along, and it was going to bring it all to me - more stuff than I could ever dream of using, and all I had to do was click a button. Alas, the auction ended this evening without meeting the reserve, so I'll never know how close I came. However ... she may relist. How much do you think a lifetime supply of cycling jerseys would be worth?