He's "just" a bike mechanic?

As I have mentioned before, to any one who would listen, I love, love LOVE my Trek 820! It's been a good bike and I don't know that I can bring myself to part with her but I needed a change. The problem is, you see, that my wife got herself a new bike. A hybrid. She dusts me now. I can't keep up on a bike that weighs as much as the 820 with wheels as small as the 820 and towing 40-50 pounds of child and trailer behind me (she claims that I deserve he handicap). To be fair, there were a couple of thins on my "wish list" for the 820, the most significant of them being a rigid fork. I have long said that if any thing ever happened to my 820 I would replace it with a bottom-line Trek hybrid. When a 2011 Trek 7.2fx popped up on my local Craigslist for pretty cheep money and in "very good condition" I had to go take a look at it. What started out as a bike purchase soon became a bike rescue.

It was clear that this thing had sen better days.It was scuffed up for sure and needed a tune-up but it seemed to be mechanically sound so I forked over the dough and took her home. I decided that, since I have more time than money right now, I would do the tune-up myself. It's not going well. I have been at this, off and on, for days now and it sill isn't right. What I need to do is get all new cables and housings for it. I had to bring the back wheel in and have a spoke replaced and trued though, and the set me back a few dollars that I didn't want to spend. Now, I can't get the front wheel to spin freely. It stops in the same place each time, indicating to me that the front wheel is also out of true. OR I adjusted the breaks wrong. I haven't even started on the shifting problems yet! It's been a lot or trial and error so far and I am "this close" from throwing in the towel and punting it to a professional. I suppose it's easy if you do it every day but despite the simplicity of a bicycle it's a delicate process getting it "just right".

I am eager to give this thing a real ride and see if it's every thing that the 820 was but, you know, faster! I guess I can head down to the LBS and get the cables and stuff but I'm afraid that some of the components might just be worn out and that I can adjust to my heart's content and never get it right and never figure out if it's me or the bike that's out of sorts. If I start throwing more money at this thing I might as well just buy a brand new one. Oh, and it wasn't a 2011. It was a 2007. Kind of a different  beast. Maybe I'll just put it back on CL and get the new one after all.

Signed,

Frustrated In The Tween Space.

Not Blak Fridaying

If I were, I would be hitting this!

I actually have plans for such a thing. Sadly they include taking it on very infrequent kayak Trips and for some inter-modal commuting that would take well over twice as long as simply driving there. So, theres not  lot of actual need for such a thing and since I haven't been working due to a broken foot, there is little money for one of these things. Oh sure, there is the "wicked neat" factor. Of course to "fit in" in the greater boston blogosphere I need a Brompton. Like this one.

Now I have a soft spot for French Bikes, but these things start at eight hundred and fifty Pounds so, they are significantly more pricy than the Origami Cricket pictured above the above. Perhaps if I suck up to a local custom frame builder I can make my own. Make my own folding bike huh? I can't make my own pancakes with 100% certainty. I think home-made folding bikes are out!

Folding bikes.

Love them.
Want one.
Dreaming up reasons why I "need" one.
Can't afford one (even a cheepie).
Am not capable of manufacturing one of my own.
Accepting donations!

Dead Blogs

As I sit here recovering from my "incident" I have a lot of time on my hands. I have been catching up on a lot of the blogs that I had subscribed to when i first started to enjoy the pastime of Cycling and realized that most of them are dead! There is one particular fellow in Boston who I was convinced had or contributed to a Blog and it was him particularly that I was seeking out. I had the opportunity to sell him a frame for a project that he was thinking of a while ago but it didn't work out. I wish that it had! He is definitely the kind of guy the I would like to know better IRL, but since that opportunity has passed, I wanted to stalk his intern self. Nothing, There are a lot, like 10, of those old blogs that I found interesting that have one or two posts in the last year or none at all! Get Bloging people! 

What a pretentious twat!

I don't know why I keep reading her. It's like a train wreck. I can't look away. I value her opinion (sort of). I care about her, I have a crush on her at the same time I want to punch her right in her hipster nose.

My foot hurts something awful. It's broken. My body is breaking. I need to ride or die, but ride I can not! Hope that I can hold off on the dying for a month or so!

First day of Slavery for the Marthon

Hooked the old Raleigh up to the trainer today. Sad times.

My Ross Bryce Canyon

Since I broke my damn foot I am OOS when it comes to cycling these days so all I can do is dream.... Today I am dreaming about my "camp bike" that I leave up at my in-laws' place in case I wanna ride when I am up there. I actually bought the bike to strip for parts to fix a Trek 820 that I had but the bike was in too nice of a condition to chop and, after I looked into it some, I realized that I had a pretty nice and unique ride indeed. Apparently, although the only bike I ever remembered from them was the Apollo 5-speed (you know I had one of those!). I didn't realize that they were a founding force in the Big Name mountianbike scene back in the day or that they once made, here in the USA, competitive MTBs. This one isn't top of the line, by any stretch but I think that it is at least as well specked out as any thing form the other Big Players of the era. It doesn't get ridden nearly enough but I think that it rides pretty nice. I am a little leery of taking it on real rigged trails as it is a little too big for me but for the dirt roads and back streets near FIL and MIL, It's the bomb! 

I'm number one!

Ok, I'm not but my bike is! Recognize this bike?

Well, if you ever google Diamond Back Sorrento DX you just might because it's the #1 google image that shows up! And its my bike! Isn't that cool? Any way. I love the old girl. We have been through a lot together over the years since I bought her in '94 or so. She was a left over but brand new, the only brand new bike that I ever bought. I guess she's pretty much retired now but I'll never get rid of her. She has a special place in my heart and in my eyes, and on Google Images, she is number one!

My Honey got a new whip!

 With our pending house purchase looming, we set out to find, at her request, the "perfect" bike for her.We started out close to home. That makes sense right? She didn't like any of them. We tried a little farther and she didn't like any of them. Well, that's not true. She liked one of them but the clerk would not let he ride the thing around the parking lot because it was raining. A little. This was a shop that has long been known not as a "bike" shop but a "mountain bike" shop. I guess things are going so well there the they don't need our money. Off to the next stop. There is a bike shop in Middleton that had the up-dated version of the model that she rode on vacation that she liked so much. Sure enough, she loved this bike BUT not as much as the "real" one that she rented and rode on vacation. That bike, you see, had an internally geared hub and that model was no longer made. She was pretty sure that she was going to order one of them. Just the same, she wanted to check out what the bike shop in the nicest suburb around had to offer and there she found "her" bike. A 2012 Specialized Ariel. We all agreed that it was a bike that she would find less comfortable on the first few rides, but want to ride more often as she grew used to to it. Of course, if she didn't lie it right away, she would never get to that point. It was decided: she would order the Comfort Hybrid. The plan was set. 

So, of course the next day, she bought the Specialized Ariel. Between the day that she bought it and the first day that she got to ride it, she decided that she hated it. Oh great. That lasted about 15 seconds into the ride. She absolutely loves this bike. So much so that she is even contemplating allowing a bicycle rack placed on her car!

Stolen Bike Paranoia

I am seriously putting of going for a ride because we just got back from vacation and I am afraid that when I go down stairs my bike(s) will be stolen! I hate living here. :(

I have to hand it to the folks over at Trek. I was reading a review of the Trek 820 mountain bike. The reviewer was quite through and quite a bit.. odd. The review was not favorable and I commend Trek for publishing it and letting it stand. However, it was also a deceptively well written mad-man's fantasy, which was easy for me, a "veteran" cyclist to discern. On the other hand, I'm really not so sure that the people in the target audience, looking to buy a Trek 820 would recognize that the reviewer was mad.

It seems that the individual in question, a dedicated road rider, purchased the lowest priced geared adult bicycle in the Trek line-up to ride 140+ mile a week on the MUP. He begins by complaining that the bike doesn't fit him and that he doesn't like the front fork. He then attacks the 820s target demographic:

" but unfortunately, most people that ride very little dictate what we can buy.".

Somehow, this 6 and a half foot tall man who puts 140-200 miles a week riding his poor 820 at 20 MPH speeds all the time, rode the thing into the ground.  Who would have thunk  such a thing possible.  

I have some issues with this dude.

First, if he didn't want a bike with a front suspension fork, why did he BUY a bike with a front suspension fork? There are plenty of offerings, some from Treka dn nearly as cheep as the 820 that not only don't have a front suspension fork but have larger, narrower wheels and the road-bike components that he had such difficulty retro-fitting onto his mountain bike. Why 105 and not Deore for that back derailure? Hum? He summarizes his review by trashing the bike some ore, bragging about his riding habits some more and insulting the bikes target audience some more. He does offer the bike the back jaded complement as being as good as a Next bike, maybe even better.  

In closing, the reviewer, clearly, purchased the wrong product for the job and had difficult making it work for him from within the oddly narrow confines of his idiom. Then he published it.  As a diatribe. On the Trek Website. And the let him. And, here's the kicker, 16 

of 32 customers found it "useful". Useful for what?

Sorry Sir, I have said it before, and I'll say it again. I LOVE my Trek 820! It has ben a good trail bike and is a GREAT MUP bike/Errand bike. I have not broken or bent it. I have not ahd any issues with it and no parts have fallen off of it. It's near indestructible and I would cheerfully replace it with another one of the exact same kind if stolen. OK, that's not true. I'd replace it with a bike with no suspension in the fork and larger, narrower wheels and some of those 105 mountain bike components.  

It is significantly harder...

... to ride a mountain bike  off road (or on for that matter) than it is to ride a cross bike on a bike path! 290 calories my ass! 

Went Riding with the Wife

Ten miles ( a lot for me, it was killing her!) and two hot dog specials later, we are still alive.

OK, Usually my complaint with myself is that I don't have any pictures but this time I didn't write any words and that  shame because something needs to be said about the effort that my Honey put out keeping up to me and the incredible Hot Dogs we had for dinner. 

My wife has this Raleigh MTB that she got as a gift from her parents when she graduated High School. Last year she decided that she doesn't like riding it because the frame is too small. OK. Sure. Another Raleigh bike that was in her family was her dad's Marathon which got passes on to me a few years ago. I really enjoy riding that bike around and was very thankful to him for letting me have it as it replaced my too-small Peugeot. Last year I was able to get my hands on a matching mixtie version of the Marathon and I bought it and had the LBS fix it up. She rode it once and did not touch it again until this ride.

One of our favorite trails to ride is the Marsh Trail in Salisbury. It is not very long but we never fail to see bird life and little critters that often scamper right over the trail in front of us! On those occasions where we have our toddler with us he thinks that is pretty darn cool. We set out on this trail this evening and, before we even began she informed me that she wanted to go over the bridge and ride around Newburyport. So, that's what we did. She was a Brave Little Toaster but by the time we made it up and back the Marsh Trail and over the bridge, she was wiped out and hungry. I wanted to ride a little bit on the Clipper City Trail as it has a spur that connects to Cashman's Park that I had not explored yet. It was there that we came across a hot dog cart.

The people running it live nearby and had actually just gone into business that day! They were very nice and cart was spotlessly clean. The dogs were delicious and we even got fortune cookies for desert! Excellent first effort from those folks. I hope that they do well.

After our pick-nick meal she got her second wind and I got to do a little more exploring. We rode down to the train station, which was a lot closer than I though and cut back through the city. and over the bridge. Climbing the bridge was the biggest hill for sure, but there were a few other little hills involved in the ride. It was a challenge for me and definitely for her! She had some trouble getting the hang of friction-shifting her gears. She made it the whole way. I think that ten miles is a very respectable First Ride for her.

How is this for "tween" for you?

I have been reading about the The Emmaus Cycle for Shelter on line for a few days now. Because it's a Cycling event, I never associated it specifically with the homeless shelter that we have here in town. In fact, we have MANY (no, not "some" or "a few": MANY) homeless shelters here in town. This is NOT a cycling kind of town. It's a "twwen" space. Its "tween" a place where people cycle for transportation, like a "real" city and a place where people cycle for recreation, like a real suburb. I just assumed that Emmaus was an organization much larger than the one facility that we have here in town. I was wrong. 


So, this is a charity ride to support, solely, a homeless shelter in Haverhill MA. The Irony of this, of course, is that NONE of the loops are actually IN Haverhill, much less go anywhere NEAR the shelter, or it's environs. Yes, it does start in Haverhill, (in one of the nicest sections of town) but it make a beeline out of town for some of the "nicer" communities surrounding Haverhill.


I would like to urge all of you to NOT ride this ride or contribute in any way to this, or any other Charity based out of Haverhill or for the benefit of any individual reside in IN Haverhill. It is only by your staunch and unwavering inaction that we can make Haverhill an inhospitable place for the lowest classes of people and make it into the kind of community that charity bike rides DO go through!

"Read Me"

Go ahead! Click it!

I Worte about riding my bicycle yesterday

right over here.  I should be taking more pictures but I kinda forget when I'm riding....

First ride of the season? Really?

No? I mean, we have a vacation planned FOCUSED on riding bicycles. Ilove bicycles. I own a shit-ton of them! Sadly, it is true. Yesterday was the first time all year that I had the chance to actually RIDE one of them. In a way, it was good.

I have a new bike. I got it at the end of last year and never really rode it so much. It's a Specialized Tricross (just the base model). Being, as it is, a Cyclocross bike it is theoretically capable of not only riding on the road but on light trails as well. Of course it feels like a road bike, more so than it does a MTB. Having ridden neither in many months my body had no "muscle memory" of what a bike on the road "should" feel like or what a bike on trails "should" feel like so when I went off exploring yesterday, I was able to go on both with he same bike and not get wiggles out about having a "road bike" on the easy trails that I found and explored.

It wasn't a long ride by any stretch of the imagination, but it got my heart rate up and I burned more calories that I would have sitting at home blogging about riding, so I guess it was a "win". I went around Salisbury: the Marsh Trails and some random dirt roads and trails that I found that led down to the river. The one really interesting (and smelly) thing that I did find was a huge pile of clam shells, like a commercial clam-shel dump. Out in the middle of no-where. It was kind of creepy actually.

Hopefully yesterday was the first ride of a re-kindled love affair. Bikes are fun!

Bolt Upright

In my quest to transform my Trek 820 from mediocre (at best) mountain bike into the Ultimate Bike Path Warrior, I made the great leap of swapping out he bars. Now, to some folks, the so called "leap" of swapping bars is akin the the "leap" rolling out of bed in the morning, but to me, it's kinda special. So I ordered a set of "Tourist" bars from Velo Orange. I did not want to ditch my trigger shifters in favor of something more "traditional" like thumb friction or bar end shifters and I am glad to report that they, as well as the 820's original grips fit right on the bars. The whole process was, for the most part, painless. I had to re-rout the cables a few times and, truth be told, making them a slight bit longer might not be the worst die that I ever had. I had to wait two day to get to take it for a ride. It was sort of a torture.

Now, if you follow my blog at all (and I know that you don't), you might remember that a couple of years ago I had in my stable, for a short time, and Olde Tyme English Threespeed. I didn't like it that much. Unlike in The City Proper, out in my neck of the woods, there are a LOT of hills. I found that the tried and true Sturmy Archer hub just wasn't what my Big Bottom needed to get around. I also remember, now, feeling as if I were perched up on high with the bikes riding position. As if I were gliding effortlessly amongst the Common Folk and that they should all look up at me with bent necks as I rode by. I remembered this because that's exactly the feeling that I got as I test rode the UBPW.

Now, I certainly expected a more upright riding position on the re-styled Trek. It only makes sense. What I did not expect was how much of a difference it would really make. It was very sit p and beg. A little too much so for my liking actually. I don't have the bars set level either. There is a fairly good angle at the grip end to make my hands fall more naturally onto the ends of the bars and around the controls.  I found myself choking-up on the bars some time and even sliding forward on my seat. I guess the weight distribution felt off, too centered on thereat of the cycle. I'm going to adjust the angle some more I think. Maybe move the seat forward a little, which seems counter intuitive to me: I brought the grips closer, the seat should move farther away, right? That's not how it feels when I'm riding it.

Another difference was that the Three Speed had a nice, sprung, leather Brooks Saddle. That would have been nice to have yesterday. Not imperative, and if the riding experience had not been so strikingly familiar, I might never have begun to pine for that seat. But pine away I did, like a dead parrot for the fjords.  Again, adjust before replace. Not afraid to do either. I have WAY more invested in this bike in terms of parts and labour that I do in the actually bike! I might be back in the V.O. catalogue before long.

There is a female cyclist who's blog I follow. She began her riding adventures on three-seep commuter type bikes. She rode to get to the store, get to work and began writing to share her experiences on it. As she began to get more into riding though, she began to bend forward over her bars. She got diamond frames and drop-bars and she began to write about how she was using different muscles and how it was effecting her riding. I had no idea that it would work so stunningly in the reverse mode! The lower third of my thigh muscles took it the hardest. Not all that bad, but I only went about four miles with no real climbing to show for it. Seriously: weather it was a natural by-product of the riding position or some sort of flashback the that poor outclassed three speed, riding around on theta bike with those bars did NOT make me want to go up hills with it. Not really an absurd fate since this bike's main function is to pull a 3 year old in a trailer along bike paths and go to the grocery store every now and then. Still, at least I should try a hill or something I guess. Now, here is the weird part. I felt like I wasn't going very fast at all. However, my GPS motored and computer generated average speed was actually higher than is normal for me. Sure, there were no climbs to drop it down but neither were there descents to raise it back up. EIther way, I would have thought that I would have had a lower number for an average.

The verdict? I liked it. I'm pretty sure that I will be keeping these well made and super comfy bars on my bike. The chrome looks a little silly coming out of the black stem, but other than that these bars are a win and a half. 

A little pissed.

I follow several bike blogs. Some are pretty amusing, some are very self-important and some are.....sad and pointless. Yet, all represent a different attitude and opinion about a pastime that I love, and wish I had more time for. Some times it's nice to live vicariously through others' rides. Some times they inspire me to get out there on my own no mater how cold it is or how tired I might be. The thing that burns me though, is that they ALL have subscribers! Some of them are making MONEY at writing bike blogs! Sa-weet! Now, I am by no means a shameless self-promoter. I imagine that you have to look really hard to find this blog, unless you are googling pictures of Raleigh Marathons. That's the number one source of traffic here. Perhaps I should write more about this bike and take more pictures and, in general, "pimp" it. Sadly, it has spent most of it's life in disrepair and disarray. I have so little time available to go ride by myself that the fully functional bikes that are NOT almost thirty years old and do NOT need any TLC get called into action and the Marathon sits on the sidelines.

As sad as it is, it is in much better shape than the Peugeot UO-8 project that is sitting in my basement! That bike started out as a perfectly rideable one-owner whip with a slight dent in the back wheel that made it brake funny. So, I decided that I was going to swap out the wheel and bars for aluminum. I had genuine Peugeot parts from a later decade, so I didn't feel too badly about the up-grades. The trouble was that the new wheel was a 6 speed and the old one was a 5. I never got the derailure to line up right an the project died. Pity. I would like again some day ahve a nice old road bike, and by nice I mean 531. I had one, another Peugeot, but it was too small for me (by a lot) so I sold it to a girl in Cambridge who, I realize now, only wanted it for a winter beater! Sigh.

So, any way, back to my original point: if you read any of my posts and enjoy the way that I write or the things that I write about please subscribe to it! Thank you for your support.

Clipped!

Clipped-in that is! I went and did it. After almost three years of cycling I went out and got clipless pedals and real, honest to goodness, cycling shoes! I know! Right? Me!.

My personal Bike Guru, Derek, long ago sold me shoes that fit (tacky road shoes and clipless pedals. The thing about those shoes it that they require the rest of the outfit to not look totally rediculous and out of place. Also, they are NOT the type of shoes to be seen in when you crash as a learner. No one would look at those shoes on an unconscious rider lying in the street and think,

"That poor guy trying to learn clipless! He fell off his bike and got knocked out"!

No, they migh bring a response, or thought along the line of ,

"Nice Shoes Lance. Should have bought some bubble-wrap for your un-conscious ass instead of all that spandex".

So I had those shoes, and some clipless peddles that had NO grippy sides and they sat in a box. For a while. then, randomly, I got it in my head that I should at least try clipless peddles so, naturally, instead of using what I had, I went out and bought new gear! What I got was two-sided peddles: one clipless and the other "normal" so I could install them on my bike and have the option to ride either way as the situation or my mood dictated. Secondly, I bought some MTB cycling shoes. The kind with laces. The kind that don't look like clown slippers but like sneakers. Sneakers with reflective striping and the word SHIMANO on the side but close enough.

Next step, install the peddles. Easy as pie. So easy in fact that I am fairly convinced that I did something wrong and that they will fall off any time now. They haven't yet though, so I am off to a good start any way. So, I set out for a near-by field, using the normal, gripy side of the peddles.I was instructed, in no uncertain terms, that I should make sure that I was on grass and practice for hours clipping in and out of the clipless peddles as I would be falling over like a drunk at 3am Saturday morning every time I tried to start or stop my bike. I am impatient. I couldn't wait. I struggled to find the right, clippy, side of the peddles but after a few tentative stabs with my toes, snick! I was in! Now the other side. Snick. Excellent.

Well, as things turned out, I had to start and stop several times during the ride. I remembered to clip-out ever time that I had to stop and got a little smoother at snicking back in after I started. I think that mechanically, the getting IN part will be harder than the getting out part. I think functionally, after I stop constantly reminding myself to "clip out when I stop, clip out when I stop, clip out when I stop, clip out when I stop" I WILL indeed fall over. Oh well. Not yesterday.

I rode a around for about an hour. I checked out our local bike-path. It was in a little nicer shape than the last time I checked it out and less "bummy" for sure. As for the experience of riding clipless? Well, at first I was like, "big deal". BUT after a while I began to feel like it was more efficient and a few hours after I stopped riding I realized that muscles that do not normally ache after a ride ached. So, low danger, little perceived change in how I go about my business while I am riding and expands the list of muscles used to do the riding. I am, for the time being, going to call the clipless peddle a "Win".

New Years Day: The Day of the Coyotte.

My wife was kind enough to allow me out of the house on a bicycle today. I was determined to NOT simply saddle up and burn myself ragged until I ran out of steam. No boring "loop" for me today. With that in mind I selected my Trek 820 as my steed-de-joure. There were other factors in the choice. I had her tuned up a bout a month ago but with the coming of the Crossbike, she had been quite neglected. Also, one of my "plans" had me riding the MTB trails at the local park. The MTB has no fenders though, and it was still a little gross on the streets, despite not raining at the time. Besides, I just really wanted to have some fun with that poor bike! Pull the kid? Yep. Grocery run? Sure. Trip to the bank or hardware store? Trek 820 please. Something fun? Something else!



So I got geared up, got my (way too heavy) backpack* on and fired her up. We head down hill which ment that we had to go back UP hill, and the hills in these parts are pretty steep.Well, to me they are. So there I am riding up-hill, down town, needing to take a left hand turn and am all out of breath and half dead. I check, I double check and whip out my best VC move and signal my left turn. Around the corner and up another damn hill! Really? I'm less than two miles away from home (an on my "way to the bank" rout that I have negotiated about 75000 times before) and I'm exhausted. I seriously thought about turning back, but did not. After all, my Teamates are counting on me right?

I rode around a little more and, based on a cut-through on a dirt trail and past experience, I decided to NOT try to tackle the 5 mile off-road loop on this bicycle on this day. Instead I went up over the highway and out into the countryside. It was there that I cam across this fellow. I stopped to look.

What is this? A wolf? A dog? I doubted both. I settled on Coyote. I watched it run around in the field hunting mice or whatever for a while. I took a few iPhotos of it, but nothing god. I was hoping that it would come closer so I could get a good shot. Well, suddenly it did. It locked on me and started "coming right for me" as they would say in that town in Colorado. It was then I saw the white paws and decided that it was probably a dog after all. Now I became concerned about it's well being. Alone out in a field next to the woods. So I called to it. THAT altered it's trajectory! It took a left turn and bolted. It was heading straight for a playground! Oh great. I was wishing that my iPhone was an iTwo-Twent Two right then as i quickly assigned the animal back into the "Coyote" slot and feared that it would eat a child. I hopped back on my trusty steed and charged, the long way around, after it. I found no sign of the animal and there were no children in sight (other than the one he dragged away into the woods to gnaw on as a snack, I'm sure.

I buggered out.

I kept riding over hill and dale. I saw happy streams and some big, shaggy moo-cows that iThought about taking pix of but they were far away and I was up to my Bag Limit for "little dots that might look like animals if developed correctly" shot for the day. I kept peddling. In all I made it ten miles. I almost got eaten by one wolf and almost run over by one SUV. I felt good about having gone out and got some miles on me on the first day of 2012. I'm glad that I didn't turn back after the first two hills!

Twisted Steel, it turns out, is not sexy at all.

I have a friend. I feel badly for him. He is what many would call clumsy. His affliction goes beyond that in real terms but for the purposes of this discussion it is a good enough term.

Now this guy, friend-x, wanted a road bike. He's a tall fellow and does not have a lot of liquid capital. Ok, he doesn't have any capital tied up in stocks and bonds either. He is just kind of broke. So, whereas he is poor, tall and a Friend of Mine and whereas I had a nice 61cm Peugeot frame (from AFTER they converted to "normal" sizes and threadings) it was resolved that I would make a gift of this frame and various bits to make about 75% of a bicycle to Friend-X. It was so done. He took the bike and a hundred and seventy five bucks to the campus bike shop and emerged with a fully functional, rideable price of Vintage Steel. It is at this EXACT point that things take a turn for the worse. He adjusted the fork-holders on his Thule roof racks, put the bike up and drove home. He went for a ride right then, even though it was cold and dark and rainy. He loved it even if it was just for a short ride. He ws hooked on his "roadbike". I was pleased.

Naturally, at the first chance that I got for us to take advantage of our flexible schedules and unseasonably warm weather, I invited him to go for a ride. We were to meet at a local sub shop and go from there. I arrived later than Friend-X. As I pulled into the parking lot I saw him standing nest to the car futzing with the bike. She look good up there. She looked tall and elegant and sexy. She was ready to go. She was whole! Turns out that she was bent!

Yep. Somehow, the left forkleg had come loose from the clam, wedging the left leg in the holder. The weight of the bike waggling back and forth for the whole ride bent the drop out. A lot. I don't know how it didn't snap! So ended our bike ride and began our quest to get the thing fixed! Naturally we tried the LBS. Closed on Wednesday. That was OK because they kinda suck any way. Now what? Well, when my MTB broke the chain I brought i t to the Bicycle Shop of Topsfield. They did a great job fixing it and impressed me in general as a rider's shop. I called them up and they agreed to drop every thing and see about fixing this up for us. Hum, we might be able to salvage a ride before dark yet...

So, we drove over. It not a short drive. Cost about $7 in fuel. We walked in and the man working there take a look at it. "It's bad", he tells us. Not to worry. He has a guy who works for him who is a machinist. That guy will be in tomorrow and they can have it fixed up for less than twenty bucks. Friend-X says "Humm". He thanks them for their time and collects his bent-ass bicycle and we leave. My blood presure spiked just a little
bit. As we walked to the car I inquiered why we were not getting his fork fixed. I was going to pay for it at that point! he ruined my bike, my gift and my fun! I wanted that bike fixed almost as much as if it had been my own (still). That was, surpprizingly, NOT the reason! He wanted to bring it to a bike shop closer to his house. Now, I can understand this. It makes sense. Of course THIS shop was about 8 miles from his house. Not that far, but the closer one was, well, closer. Or at least it used to be.

Once upon a time there was a bike shop. It had an address and a phone number on the internet. The address was plugged into the GPS and off we went. We tried to call. I was told "There was something wrong with their phone". Ah, the power of pure hope! As we drove on, the "we" manning the phone turned to "I" and  when "I" tried to call "I" discovered that the problem with the bike shop's phone was that it was "disconnected". The bike shop that was closer, the bike shop that was better, was a figment of Friend-X's imagination. I had one more trick up my sleeve.

Some say he was born on a bicycle being peddled through the south of France. Some say that his internals are all bike gears except for his tongue. All I know is that he is called Ed. Ed runs Cycle Re-Cycle in Haverhill. He does two things very well: he talks and he fixed bicycles. It was to him that I brought my goofy friend and his twisted fork. When we got there the sign said Open but the locked door said "Closed". The 'shop" is a windowless barn next to the house. There was no way to check inside other than calling so call I did. He was in the house. For less than a minuet Quick as a wink he was out in the yard talking to us. He was on his way out. He had no space to leave it. Could we bring it back tomorrow? "Oh sure" said I. "where are you going"? I asked. Well, that question led to more and more talking and next thing e knew he had us in the shop and was using some sort of Magical Wizard Tool to make every thing alright on my buddy's fork. Five Bucks.

 We never got our ride in that day, and haven't gotten the chance to go since. Never the less we had an adventure and I got to spend the afternoon with a good, if slightly clumsy, friend. X.