I bought my first place in Mountain View in early 2002. It was not long after September 11th, 2001. The real estate market more or less froze after 9/11/2001. No one felt certain about the future. But I wanted to get into a house, or in my case, a townhouse. I found one in January and moved in a few weeks later.

In getting to know the shortcuts and access points to my neighborhood I ran across the Steven Creek Trail. It called for a bike. One of our engineering executives used to ride his bike to work everyday. He recommended that rather than start with an expensive bike that I go to The Cardinal on El Camino, across from Stanford, and buy a used one. Great idea.

The Cardinal is a long standing bike shop in Palo Alto. When I went in there were two very experienced guys working. I had no inking of what I wanted. We talked. We picked out a couple. I rode them around in the parking lot and chose the one which felt the best. Nothing fancy. One hundred and fifty-nine dollars.

That was eleven years and three houses ago. Still riding the same bike.