| bike story - part 2 |
[Sep. 29th, 2009|09:08 pm] |
before i get to the helping hand finds, let me tell you a bit about my brother. he has it as bad as i do but with half the buyers regret. in short he goes through bikes pretty quickly. he had bought himself a green bianchi pista a year newer than my own but had since gotten into NJS bikes, which are raced in japans super select track racing program. he bought a highlighter yellow bridgestone and stripped the parts off of his bianchi for the sake of the new frame. i had just started working at the bike shop so i broke in my shop discount to rebuild it as a b-bike.
a b-bike is a bike that you dont mind knocking around a bit. some call it a 'lock & leave' because you can lock it without having to worry about it and ruin your evening. i built her back up pretty proper though and because she was also a size smaller than my chrome bianchi she usually proved more popular.
while this was going on my grandmother was holding bikes for me to check out at the helping hand store. one bike i bought from there was an early sixties gold schwinn collegiate. for a time this bike was the cousin of a bike my brother and i had rescued from the YMCA. the rescued bike was a newer blue collegiate that coasted for days even though it was almost 30 years old.
old schwinns had lots of chrome. chrome handlebars, chrome stem, chrome rims, chrome fenders. with a little 0000 steel wool and some elbow grease they would all shine like new. these were the biketrail cruisers, the bikes you rode when you were just going to be riding slow. sometimes we rode them as fast as we could in the low gear. that was fun too.
besides the collegiate there was also a guys schwinn racer. guys bikes are hard to come by and this one was black and looked like edward scissorhands had handled it. there were scratches and popping paint all over it. but it was a guys schwinn racer with a coaster brake, so i bought that one too.
my grandmother also called about a pair of treks. personally i dont like trek very much. no particular reason, they just have never appealed to me. i went and checked them out anyway. i was glad i did. in the back room of the helping hand store was a pair of trek 720 tourers with full racks and panniers. both were in excellent condition. one was much too large and i sold it to a good friend, the other however i kept.
that is seven. there was also a schwinn twinn, which is a tandem, that my exgirlfriend bought for me as a gift. it was fun to ride. eventually i overhauled the coaster brake which wouldnt release and squeeled like hell. that makes eight.
besides the helping hand finds there were also now working bikes finds. the bikeshop i worked at was a working bikes drop off point. working bikes is a collective that receives donated bikes, trash bikes, etc. and repairs them. the nice ones are sold in a storefront to support the collective while the not so nice ones are sent to kids in the third world. drop off points were satellites in the suburbs where people could donate their old bikes, then working bikes would come out with a truck to pick them all up every so often. this meant that the staff had first dibs. it was from there that i found a green schwinn suburban and a white 1990s schwinn predator of the BMX golden age. there was also a red schwinn varsity nearly identical to my sierra brown one. that also joined the armada.
thats eleven. though the green suburban was given to my exgirlfriend. lets stay conservative. ten.
ebay has also helped with acquisitions. i have a basso TT funny bike which i bought on ebay. TT stands for time trial, and funny bike means the front wheel is smaller than the standard rear. the bike was built for races against the clock where aerodynamics is very important. it is also very fun to ride on the road. since it was built the international cycling body has ruled them illegal for competition. funny bikes were only in production for a small time.
I will save my other ebay aquisition for last and instead discuss the concept. "the concept" is what my white bianchi pista concept was most often called. it was like the regular bianchi pista but it was made of aluminum and built for racing. plus it was pearl white with celeste decals. it was beautiful. my exgirlfriend bought it for me before she was my exgirlfriend. it took a very long time to get it. the pista concept was a very popular model but bianchi refused to produce them in any large number. i waited a year to receive mine. then the collar cracked six months later. this made it so the seatpost could not be secured tightly, the seat would twist in the seat tube.
eventually after another long span of time the concept was sent back to bianchi under the manufacturers warranty. three more months later bianchi sent me back a 2009 D2 superpista. the superpista was imported to meet the concept orders that were still left unfilled. the superpista was a european only model that was handmade in italy by old italian men that eat lots of pasta i imagine. it still isnt as beautiful as the concept though.
that an even dozen, but there is one more. the most recent addition to the armada is a trip full circle. the way i search for bike on ebay is generally not by a particular builder, but more often according to a particular part manufacturer. for instance i found the basso searching 'campagnolo.' campagnolo invented the quick release axle as well as the derailleur. he is the father of bikes with multiple gears. he also started a parts company that has grown to be the premier parts manufacturer. campagnolos factory is still in vicenza italy.
i found the last bike searching 'columbus SLX.' columbus SLX is a tubeset that is rifled on the inside. the rifling adds strength to the tube without much added weight. while searching for this tubing i found a 1990s 54 cm campagnolo equipped paramount. it happened to be highlighter green with highlighter yellow tips. i eventually won it.
schwinn was started in chicago illinois and remained here until the late 70s. at this point schwinn began using factories in japan. panasonic i believe built most of the japanese schwinns. the top end race bikes however were still built in chicago by the paramount builders. paramount was still the top end frame. eventually schwinn was sold, but the paramount builders bought out and moved the factory to waterford wisconsin. they still build custom frames today under the name waterford in some of the same jigs used in the chicago factory.
and that about brings us up to speed.
so what do i do with all these bikes? there are three daily drivers: the green pista, the superpista, and the SLX paramount. the red and brown varsity are retired. the chrome bianchi and my dads paramount are semi-retired. the trek and the peugeot have generally been guest bikes. both of my exgirlfriends were fans of the peugeot. the more recent liked the peugeot so much we named one of our cats for it. the basso makes it into the regular rotation occasionally. and the two cruisers are still taken out on wet days on account of their full fenders. none of my bikes are too nice to ride. |
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| my bike story |
[Sep. 29th, 2009|04:19 pm] |
people often see me riding my bike around. if they see me often enough, they start to ask, "how many bikes do you have?" i usually try my best not to tell them the outright truth, which is over a dozen. i find that to be somewhat embarassing. so let me explain how i came to possess over a dozen bicycles.
the story begins when i was very young. back then i liked red bikes as red was and still is my favorite color. my favorite things in the world, fire engines, were red and sometimes white or yellow or black. i had a red 16" schwinn predator. i once fell asleep riding that bike along the bikepath with my dad. i suppose he is the true start to my story.
my dad had two bicycles when i was born. he had two schwinn paramounts of approximately the same vintage. one was yellow and had ten speeds, it was for racing. the other was red and had fifteen speeds and was built for touring. my bike only had coaster brakes, but my dads bikes had hand brakes. i wanted hand brakes and regularly asked him to put his brakes on my bike. he always told me he couldnt do it. even as a child i figured he was only saying that because he didnt want to put his hand brakes on my bike. now i know he really couldnt.
bikes eventually took a back seat to school and comic books and rollerblades and hockey. eventually however bikes became a constant part of my life again. i grew into the same bike that i begged my dad to take the brakes off of. he would eventually give it to me and it is one of my most prized pieces of my armada. i call my collection of bikes the aramada, after the spanish armada which was the most decorated navy in the world until the british defeated them. for instance the americas were "discovered" by a man sailing under the spanish flag.
so my dads paramount is one of the roots of my current collection. another is my friend joe. joe was one of the first kids i knew that had a trackbike. it was a 2004 chrome bianchi pista that he had carefully applied celeste sticker vinyl to. celeste is supposedly the royal color of the italian crown or somesuch, it is also bianchis signature color. trackbikes have no brakes or gears but only a single fixed cog. joe is a second root.
the third root came the summer between my last year as an undergrad at dominican university and my first year of gradschool at the university of illinois. i came home and my dad told me he had gotten me something. i had been talking about buying a road bike to take to school. i was looking to spend up to $2000, which at the time and still now would get me a considerable machine. as such my mind immidiately thought bicycle. instead of a modern aluminum road machine though i found something much classier.
my dad had found a sierra brown 1972 schwinn varsity. it sat in a basement for most of its 30+ years and was in absolutely excellent condition. it was factory original down to the innertubes. i rode that bike relentlessly through that summer. these three bicycles, my fathers, joes, and now my own were the holy trinity of my bicycle church.
an aside: about the same time that i got my varsity i asked my grandmother who works at a helping hand outlet to begin looking for vintage schwinns. bicycles often came into the store and were also often in excellent shape. i asked her to hold anything that was donated that appeared to be of any value. this request would further shape the armada.
the seed that my friend joes pista planted moved me to get my own bianchi pista the summer between my first and second year at U of I. i was concerned that the varsity would be stolen so i left it at home and rode around on my brothers BMX bike as well as a schwinn traveler i had found at a garage sale. neither bicycle got me very jazzed. meanwhile there was a small shop in urbana with quite a character for an owner. he sold bianchis. bianchi had just given the pista new decals, a white field with black bianchi print bordered at both ends my world champ stripes. world champ stripes are a band of blue, red, black, yellow, and green in that sequence. i loved the new decal scheme and used this as well as my parents willingness to pay for it to aquire my first trackbike. this bicycle would become the cornerstone of my current collection.
the next proper addition to the armada was a 1982 peugeot 12 speed that i found under rather interesting circumstances. my girlfriend at the time attended indiana university and as her boyfriend it was understood that i would help her move from dorm to dorm and from apartment to apartment. on this occassion i was moving her in for her senior year (concurrent with my second year at illinois). as we began moving things into the small house she and three other friends had rented for the year i spied two bicycles in disrepair parked on the patio. i inquired about these and found that they belonged to her housemates boyfriend. i noted my interest in bicycles to said boyfriend and he replied that he only needed one of them and as the peugeot was in worse shape he offered to give it to my outright. as such the armada grew to three.
an aside: the other bicycle was a motobecane that was too large for me. also, the peugeot was actually probably in better shape. i was tickled when he insisted i could have the peugeot.
the peugeot did need some work. first it was converted to a single speed bicycle by simply removing the derailleurs. eventually it would be fixed or converted to operate like a track bike. the peugeot became a fan favorite. it was easy to ride and i had less apprehension about locking it up outside the halls of the university. the peugeot and the pista were the two bikes i had with me for the remainder of my stay in urbana.
meanwhile my grandmother had found a few other bicycles to add to the armada.
part two to follow... |
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| new toy? |
[May. 19th, 2009|10:31 am] |
specialized saxo team tarmac. red equipped.
b-b-b-ballin. |
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| spring cleaning |
[May. 1st, 2009|12:56 pm] |
last weekend erin and i rearranged the apartment.
we also took the opportunity to hunt dustbunnies.
here is how it turned out.
the proper bedroom became our new office.
there is a lofted bed, a couch, a television, and the computer desk.
we also relocated the litter boxes into the out of the way closet.
all this stuff had been in the dining room and living room.
the dining room then became our new bedroom.
there is much more room, and lots of light in the morning.
not to mention the breeze and easy access to the kitchen.
that is all. |
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| LA vay-kay |
[Mar. 30th, 2009|10:09 am] |
george and i went out to LA to visit onur while i was on spring break.
geo left on thursday and took the train arriving saturday morning.
i flew out and met him saturday evening. on the way i saw some cool stuff.
mountains!
canyons!
once i got there onur and geo whipped out to LAX and picked me up.
the first two days it was super windy. sand was everywhere.
evidence of heavy wind.
the first or second morning there we went to the beach.
it was the first time either of us had been to the ocean.
the nice thing about all the wind was that it cleared out the smog.
onur remarked that it was near the clearest he had ever seen the sky.
he lives only about three blocks from the beach
and there is a bike path that runs up and down for about 50 miles or so.
needless to say geo and i spent lots of time riding along the beach.
we eventually rode up to orange 20 which is the hip bikeshop in LA.
it was 60 miles give or take round trip. our butts were hurting by the end.
i took this while we were recooperating at venice beach.
this is a pack of bros on beach cruisers.
from what i gathered LA has a serious shortage of females.
and what would a trip to the west coast be without surfers.
overall we had a good time.
we took it easy for the most part.
no tourist stuff just cruising and hanging out.
we will have to do it again sometime.
peace! |
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| selective citizenship vs. participatory democracy |
[Feb. 11th, 2009|09:34 pm] |
ya know what really turned me off of politics?
selective citizenship. idiots who think that their two cents is worth a damn.
"i have a negative opinion of a speaker at a high school so ima write a letter."
"im going to demand that the high school do this and that or else!"
or else what, you will write another letter, maybe bitch to a friend.
"the community should be more involved with what is happening at the school!"
i am sure the school board meeting are just busting at the seams each month.
"we should know what our kids are being exposed to at school!"
yes it would be nice if you were more involved in your childrens lives.
it would be nice if the school didnt have to police your daughters relationship,
reminding her that it is not okay that her boyfriend beats her.
this selective citizenship and selective parenting is shit. either care or dont.
it goes 'i think; therefore i am,' there is nothing about your thoughts mattering.
arrrgh. |
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