I Want to Buy You a New Bike

When I signed up for my first triathlon last year, our household rewarded my resolve with a new bike. I have love for this bike. It carried my shaky newbie skills through two triathlons; it kept up surprisingly well in my group rides; it's been a faithful companion on the trainer this winter. I look forward to lots of rides on it in the spring.

But let's face it. I would have bought more bike. If I'd known how far my fitness was going to progress. If I'd known triathlon was going to radically change every aspect of my life. If I'd known I'd go all carpe diem on a race calendar. I've only ever wanted one other thing as badly or worked as hard for it, and that was writing my book. I'm ready for more bike.

And our household isn't ready to buy a new bike.

See, any household funds that would have gone toward a triathlon-worthy bike have helped replace the recently totaled car. My dreams of STI shifters and Speedplay pedals went up in a foul-smelling puff of airbag accelerant.

What to do? I asked, staring at my sweet little Trek. The answer, visible directly behind the Trek in this photo, hit me — well — like a ton of my own books.



Buy my book from my web site between now and March 1, and I will donate $3 for each book sold, up to 1000 copies, to Kimberlee's Bikes for Kids.

Then I will set aside $3 of those sales (the first personal income I've ever taken from the award-winning book!) for a new bike for myself. And $3 more for a bike for one of you.

This effort ends at the sale of 1000 copies or March 1, whichever comes first. If I sell 1000 copies from my web site on or before 5 PM March 1, then one purchaser, name drawn at random from those 1000 copies sold, gets a $3000 gift certificate to your local bike shop. Yes. You read that right.

Help me sell 1000 copies and you and I could be on this . Or this. Or this. Or this.

But the only guaranteed winner here is Kimberlee's Bikes for Kids.

If I don't sell 1000 copies from my site by March 1, then I'll evenly split the $9- per-book I've raised with Kimberlee's Bikes for Kids. (Ed. Scroll to the end for an update - one reader gets something, no matter what!) And I'll start fiddling with my budget to see whether I will just put skinny tires and a Twofish quick cage on the Trek. And I'll be really sad that I can't buy you a bike, because that would have been very cool.

What do you get for your $15? You get a signed copy of the award-winning memoir that was recommended by Harvard Medical School as "an autobiography that informs the mind and touches the heart." If you have ever lived with an eating disorder or damaged body image, or you love someone who lives those struggles, you may just get a way to finally break the ice and talk through your own unspeakable truths.

You get to help put kids on bikes all over the country.

And you get a 1 in 1000 chance for a really fun shopping day at your LBS. Those are not bad odds.

Why would I do this? Simple. Because I can. I self-published this wonderful book, so I can do anything with it that I like. Want some book reality? Sales were brisk at first when I was working part time and marketing the book all the time and it was winning its awards (it's up for a new one — wish me luck). But I went back to full time work, moved on to other projects, and sales dropped to a steady but extremely modest rate. My inventory props up my bike.

I'd rather those books fund your bike and my bike and bikes for a lot of kids.
Happily, after the income tax I'll pay on this splurge of bike love, there should be a nest egg left to market the new book that I'm currently working on and hope to bring out this year.

To participate, buy from my web site. Or from the trunk of my car, if you catch me on the street. Sales through Amazon don't count toward the total. (My site takes payment securely, and my shipping's cheaper.) Go here to see why you should read the book.

I'll post totals here and on Twitter. And I can't wait to post the pictures of you and me on our new bikes.

Update 1
Because I haven't gotten the publicity out quickly, I'm extending the deadline for this offer until March 31. However, there's a new wrinkle: if I sell 1000 books by March 1, I'll throw in a fluid trainer for the recipient of the bike gift certificate.

Update 2
How can I make this deal sweet enough to raise money for Kimberlee's Bikes? OK. Forget about my bike. Whatever I sell by March 31, Kimberlee's Bikes gets $3 on every sale and one lucky reader gets a gift certificate in the same amount. If I don't sell enough books, I don't get a bike, but you might still pick up something really cool. The trainer deal is still on, though. 1000 books by March 1, recipient gets a fluid trainer.