The Gospel According to Basement Bikes

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The Gospel According to Basement Bikes 5 min read Dec 30, 2025 A few days before confetti drops and calendar pages flip, people start acting like January has magic in it. Same life, new number, and suddenly you’re going to become the kind of person who meal preps, reads Robert Greene excerpts, and never scrolls again. Cute. I have a humbler religion, and it starts with exercise equipment. I’m a middle-aged Black man from Richmond, Virginia. I love BBQ and football. Hold up, let me qualify that. I am a Chicago Bears fan, which means my nervous system is connected to a tandem skydiving instructor each season, and this year is the first time that I can remember him pulling the cord at the right moment. My pop had big arms and taught his boys to push and pull heavy objects. Something about that feels honest, not poetically honest, but bodily honest. The kind of honesty where you can’t lie to a barbell. It either moves or it doesn’t. The only problem is access. I’ve always enjoyed working out, but I don’t particularly appreciate the friction between me and the workout during the wintertime. You know the friction. The late December drive to the gym when you live in the northeastern corner of the United States. The mental negotiation. The “I’ll do better tomorrow” bargaining session, like you’re haggling at a street market with your own excuses. So, I did what any modern American man does when he wants to improve himself, but only a little. I opened Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace is an interesting virtual space because it’s just regular people selling things to other regular people, which means you could be walking into an exceptional deal, or the beginning of a documentary where the baritone narrator pronounces, “He had the world at his fingertips until that frightful day.” You don’t know the difference, so you’d better want it. And, if you’ve been keeping score, we’re a “Good, Better, Best” family on this side, so yeah, I wanted it. I wanted an exercise bike for the basement, similar to the one I use at Gold’s Gym in Crofton, MD. Downstairs, I’ve crafted a pretty decent man cave, where I watch come-from-behind wins and University of Virginia sports, which is where I met the little lady. The idea was simple. If I’m going to sit there watching games anyway, why not ride a bike instead of sinking into the couch? Why not turn fandom into cardio? So, I messaged a young fella named Hugh. See how ridiculous and dangerous that sounds? We agreed on a price. I drove about thirty-five minutes to his place, the whole time doing that internal risk assessment that men do when they’re about to meet a guy about a thing. I pulled up. Nice enough neighborhood, nothing suspicious, no crosses burning in the distance, so far so good. The bike was there. It looked solid. I hopped on and tried it while we talked about winter being cold and other obvious observations. I handed over the money, loaded it up, and drove home feeling like I had just made a responsible adult decision. Here’s the part I’m not proud of, but it is 100% truthful. My wife, Colette, and my oldest daughter, Madison, were on a day trip to Manhattan. I know, I know, that’s how they roll. Well, I saw my window. I didn’t call a family meeting. I didn’t draft a proposal. Didn’t run the ad by the family group chat in advance. I said to myself, this strategy was best. I only wanted a corner of the room. I didn’t want to mess up the functional utility of the space. I didn’t want the basement to look crazy, like a garage sale that exploded in a sports bar. I wanted the bike to live quietly in the corner, waiting for me like a faithful dog. When I got it downstairs, I realized something that should have been obvious. The hardest part of discipline is distance. Distance is where habits go to die. Distance is where good intentions get mugged. You can have the best plan in the world, but if the thing you need is not close enough to you, your brain will choose the nearest available comfort. Your phone. Your couch. That ex-girlfriend from college. It’s the same old loop, time and time again. Remember, I have access to a gym. I go as much as any busy dad with two jobs goes. But this purchase helped me to move the bike closer. I put it where I couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist. I put it where it would interrupt my old patterns, and gently accuse me, not with shame, but with presence. Move the bike closer. That phrase started expanding in my head like it wanted to become a better way of living. Move the better choices closer. Move the difficult but sound decisions closer. Move the life you keep saying you want closer to your actual room. Put it next to you. Moving the bike closer could mean mending the relationship with my oldest brother now that Momma is gone, instead of letting pride sit in the seat and pedal for me. Moving the bike closer might manifest itself as I reach out to an old friend, instead of waiting for the perfect moment, which never seems to come. Moving the bike closer means stacking the deck in your favor and progressively and proactively doing the things that make your soul soar, or challenge your heart to beat a bit faster or better. Then, the second unintended surprise happened. The bike didn’t just change the complexion of my evening. It changed the temperature of my house. Colette and Madison came home, and the bike was sitting there like a new roommate. My youngest, Nina, came downstairs later while I was yelling loudly at a game, because apparently, I believe the Bears can hear me through the television and need my feedback. They noticed the bike immediately. Of course they did. Kids notice anything new, especially if it looks like it might be fun. They wanted to see how fast they could make the pedals spin, so they did. Now the basement isn’t just Daddy’s man cave. It’s become a little family workout zone after we pulled out other gym-type items that had been sitting in the corner. Instead of being upstairs in their rooms on their iPads, they’re downstairs with me on game days, cheering with stickers on their cheeks, using my sneakers so their toes don’t get scuffed up, and negotiating the seat height like tiny engineers. Moving the bike closer means having conversations with yourself about the next steps in your life, then acting on those sound urges. Not loudly. Not for credit, but for that better version of you that isn’t seen enough. That’s what I want for the next few days or for the foreseeable future. A small philosophy that started in the corner of the basement, next to the noise of a football game. Move the bike closer. Then, stop talking . This machine isn’t going to pedal itself.