Freedom!

Although I've got a racing bike and a mountain bike, I've been wanting a simple city bike for a couple of years already. Whenever I visit my Mom in Oulu, I get to ride her 3-gear ladies' bike. My racing bike is purely for sports. My mountain bike is good for riding in the city, but not for parking it, locking it, riding it when wearing a skirt, or transporting anything. It doesn't have a stand, so it always has to be parked leaning on something. Locking it takes forever, since you need a separate insurance company certified lock. You can imagine the problems with the skirt. And as there's no rear rack, the only kind of bag you can have with you is a backpack. The outcome of all this is the fact that for some years already, I've been walking to places and using the mountain bike mainly for exercising. And as it takes longer to walk to places, I've felt "trapped".
Today I finally got myself a 3-gear, foot-brake (or whatever it's called) ladies' bike with a fixed lock. The bike has both a rear rack and a mounted basket on the front. I LOVE IT! There was a 20 % discount on all bikes this week, so the bike wasn't even too expensive, only 279 euros.
I got my freedom back!!! :D