I want to ride my bicycle

This is not strictly related to dating, but is so typically me I thought I'd share!

My bike... you may remember last weekend I bought a bike. An impulse buy (I had romantic visions of me cycling down country lanes, in a floaty little number, angel curls being teased gently by the breeze). Well, so far it hasn't *quite* panned out as I'd imagined.

It came in a box... in bits. The guy who sold it to me said they're relatively simple to put together, so I thought being a 'fairly' intelligent person I should be able to manage it myself.

So I spend last Sunday morning wrestling with various bits of metal, cables and rubber. It only took an hour to do. Even though I couldn't work out how to get the back brake from being stuck on (I thought the extra effort cycling would help in my eternal quest for a Kylie-esque bum!) it all seemed to be in working order.

I've now been riding this bike about the place for a week, and OK, my little vision is *slightly* different in reality;

There isn't a country lane for miles, and the stuck brake kind of limits the distance I can go before complete and utter exhaustion sets in.

Floaty little number... on a bike? What was I thinking!

My angel curls are not really being teased by the breeze. What actually happens is the wind frizzes it into some kind of Christle Tips affair, and various little bugs seem to get trapped in it!

(The Kylie-esque bum is coming along nicely though, so it's not all bad!)

I *have* been a little mystified by why the bike seems to veer quite sharply every time I turn, my foot scraping against the front wheel, causing me to lose my balance... but I put that down to the fact I haven't ridden a bike for about 15 years.

Anyway, yesterday on my way back from a meeting I parked the car, and proudly showed one of my colleagues my shiny new little number. Immediately he starts guffawing and shaking his head in disbelief, and takes a quick snapshot! Why? What on earth's wrong?

I've only put the front forks on BACKWARDS!

I must've had the instructions upside down! I know by now the photo has done the rounds of the office, and will possibly be emailing it's way around, in a Darwin Award style way :(

So I have a couple of choices;

Option 1 - take the bike apart again, and try to work out how to put it back the right way (but in my typical minimalist style I've thrown the instructions away)

Option 2 - take the bike back to the shop, act stupid and ask if they can make it right (I say *act* stupid... in this case I don't really think I need to act at all). My colleague has pointed out if I do this I should fully expect to be made a laughing stock, and Voice of Reason has refused point blank to suffer that humiliation with me, so I'm on my own.

Option 3 - find a new Potential who lists cycling as one of their hobbies, and see if they can help me out!