Yes, I call him Char because it’s red (You will understand if you saw “Gundam”).
I checked the craigslist in the morning to search bikes on sale. I found a couple and sent them emails with my phone number. Two of them contacted me. But I missed all of calls. Of course, I called them back, but only one answered. So, I saw him to see the bike with my own eyes and try it. Thank Buddha, he lives close to my apartment. He is a kind of bike geek and stores numerous bike junks in his house. He shares the house with 25 people, artistic people, eccentric people in a sense, hippie people in another sense.
Anyhow, he showed me three bikes: two are mountain bikes and one is a sun cruiser. The sun cruiser was not good at all. The handles were rusted, the seat was ripped, and more than anything the brakes were back brakes which I’m not familiar with. So, it went out of my choice. One of the mountain bikes he had looked really good, but he offered me $95. Gee, I can’t afford to pay $95 for a secondhand bike. The last one was just in-between: not so good but not so bad. I think only problem is the brakes, which make creaky noise each time you brake. He tried to fix it, but it didn’t work very much. It still creaks. I asked him to have the bike equipped with mud covers over tires and a bike lock as giveaways. He went back to the house and looked for them, but he couldn’t find suitable ones. He only got a broken fender and cable without a lock. They won’t work. OK, now it’s negotiation time. I asked him discount on the grounds that the brakes creak, but he never compromised, saying he spent a lot of energy on it. OK, kiddo, I’m quite new here and don’t know how to negotiate. And I paid $40. I don’t know if I did expensive shopping or not, but I will learn how to shop some time.