I got a decrepit old bicycle for Christmas this year (my family is weird about money) and brought it to a bike repair place and the guy asked me “what do you plan to use this bike for?”

and I was so perplexed by that question. eventually I said “I want to travel to places because the places that I want to go to are far away from me” and he looked equally perplexed by my answer. but like what did he expect me to say? it’s like asking what I’m going to use a refrigerator for

@kasdeya Lol, imagining that legitimately had me laughing out loud. I hope they are able to help with the bike!

@kasdeya maybe he was asking if you wanted to use it for stuff like biking trails, or racing training, or commute.

@Shivaekul hehehe I’m glad it was funny!

unfortunately the bike is pretty much totaled - nearly every part needs to be replaced so it might not be worth the cost and effort of getting it working :/ but hopefully I can get some kind of transportation eventually!

@kasdeya so the answer they’re expecting is generally one of these:

• mountain biking, where u generally drive ur bike to a nice location and ride it offroad for the day before putting it back in the car
• commuting, which is casually riding to the shops/work on paved roads
• touring, which is like commuting but much longer distances like hundreds of KMs and might sometimes go offroad
• road cycling, as in riding on roads as a sport or for fitness like tour de france

thats relevant to the repairs because they all cause different kinds of wear on the bike and have different parts suited to them

@kasdeya if it’s helpful in the future, they probably wanted to know if it was for recreation or for travel. As you need different tires for on road vs off road usage.

@kasdeya That seems like a kinda lame present then, I'm sorry to hear that :( do you think like a bike would be a good option though?

@raeaw ohh omg interesting! he did mention commuting as one of the options but when I hear “commuting” I think “going to and from work 5 days a week” so that didn’t sound right to me - but it’s good to know that that was the right one to say

@passocacornio ohhh that makes a lot more sense lol. yeah he probably wanted to know if I was going to use it off-road or if I wanted it to be able to go really fast for a race or something

@Shivaekul aw thank you. yeah it’s pretty disappointing, but they still seem interested in finding some way for me to have a bike so I’m still hopeful

and yeah I think it would be! I could at least get to the nearest cluster of shops outside the huge expanse of suburbia I’m stuck in lol, and it’d be nice to have options of places to go and things to do

maybe he meant options like "ride 50km up steep hills" or "quick run down to the shop" or something?

@brettm ohh that would make sense lol. I guess it didn’t occur to me that people use bikes for intense activities like that, or like they might take them off-road or use them in a race or something

@kasdeya but to be honest, if it was me in the situation I would probably be confused to (I kinda bug out when dealing with people face to face