My grandmother, who I was very close to, passed away about six months ago (as anyone who’s met me even once between now and then probably knows). She suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for pretty much my entire life, and she fended off the worst parts of the disease until a few years ago. But her stories as a young girl include several iconic episodes involving bikes. She escaped  several brushes with death in the Holocaust, including a time when she, her brother and her brother’s friend fled to the border on bikes. I think about her favorite painting, too: Monet’s poppy field, because it reminded her of a field where she had ridden her bicycle before she came to America but after the Nazis had taken power.

I would like to think that this miracle – people with Parkinson’s riding bikes as easily as they ever could – might contain a hint about curing the disease or understanding how it takes hold.

I also like to think of my 83-year-old grandmother, always full of so much life even until the end, kicking Parkinson’s ass while riding a bike.And hey, if there’s one more way I’m connected to her, and one more thing I can do to honor her memory, I’m not going to complain.

To get to my apartment, I have to climb a flight of stairs adjacent to two other apartments. Tonight one of my new neighbors (I moved recently) opened the door to let someone in from outside (not me! I swear) and saw me lugging this folded bundle of bike upstairs.

“A little cold to be riding bikes, huh?” she asks me.

I’m sort of taken aback and say, “Huh?”

“Isn’t it a little cold to be out riding bikes?”

For perspective, I’m wearing a wool coat, black tights and a knit dress. I feel like I’m dressed pretty appropriately for 49 degrees (even if it feels like 43, according to my friends at weather.com).

“… um … not really … ” wound up being my response.

Which was probably a jerk thing to say, but riding a bike to me is so second-nature, her question sounded as ridiculous as someone asking me, “Don’t you think November is a little bit cold for driving a car?” or “Isn’t fall just a little chilly to be just walking around outside with a coat on?”

I should have just said, “Oh, I ride my bike year-round, it’s a main form of transportation for me,” but I was just so stunned (and I was tired and in the middle of lugging 30 pounds of aluminum and rubber up a flight of narrow stairs and her tone just sounded so haughty) that I didn’t think to say it.

Next time I’ll be nicer. Promise.

Still, that interaction probably put the brakes (har har) on any friendship with the new neighbor. I’ll roll (ugh, allison) with it.

So now I’m about to go running. Probably too cold for that too. (And so dark!)

Last month, I decided I wanted to buy a folding bike to celebrate another marvelous year on this planet. I tried a full size dahon at our man nelson’s store, al’s cycle solutions, which was fun and I knew it would be convenient.

But then I got a little sidetracked. I fell in love … with a cannondale synapse. I felt like I was willem dafoe in spiderman, gliding purely by the power of my hands and feet.

I was siding with the road bike. I mean, this was love, right? All you need is (the bike you) love.

But love is a battlefield. I started to have doubts. I take the path every day to Newark, and I hate having to leave my current bike exposed to the elements locked up at Grove Street. Did I want to go from a specialized sirrus I’ve been beating around for three years to a fancy road bike I’ll barely let myself touch? Or a bike I love so much that I’d be pathologically nervous about someone stealing it? Or a bike I knew in my heart of hearts I couldn’t properly take care of. Women who love (bikes) too much, on the next Oprah.

And then, no joke, it came to me in a dream. I had been visiting my family in this dream, trying to get all around the baltimore/dc/annapolis/western maryland region, relying on the kindness of strangers (and their cars), and I was so frustrated that I didn’t just have a folding bike that I could tote along with me.

Reader, I bought it.

(If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. No, but really, I love my new bike.)

After a week of waiting, it arrived today. It’s a Dahon Cadenza, 8 speed hub, 26″ tires, and a ride as smooth as an opcao custard cup.

Still. Bikes are expensive — dreaming is free … at least until my dreams drive me to eventually buy the $1,000 road bike I (not so) secretly pine for.

Just writing that made me feel like I was making my new bike a cuckold. I think there’s something wrong with me. (Okay, or maybe a lot of things.)