Ride the Park River

The Park River comes up a lot when people talk about Hartford. Some people want it to be unearthed and visibly go through Bushnell Park again. Some people like to paddle in it under the City. I think there's some kind of plan to make it in a greenway, in fact I think it's underway. There's a bike path south of Flatbush.

If you've ever been down Brookfield St or the Flatbush Ave entrance/exit ramp, you know that the concrete channel is pretty bad ass. And, it's a pretty bad ass place to ride a bike, at expedition speed or any speed. Best accessed by from Olive Street.


It's strange that there's such an effort from keeping the neighborhood away from the river.

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Crank Cull

Today, I present to you one of my least favorite bike components ever: The welded-together triple crankset.


I hate these for a couple of reasons: For one thing, they are heavy. For another, welding three chainrings permanently together prevents you from changing any individual chainring due to wear or personal preference. When one sprocket wears out, the whole assembly is effectively junk. The resulting junk is not easily recyclable in that it is mixed metal assembly, a hunk of steel-contaminated aluminum that is unwelcome at the scrap metal yard. I hate waste, and it bothers me that things are made to be so disposable, so I thought I'd see what I could do to repurpose and reuse one.

The subject of this experiment is a mid-90's Shimano Altus 38-32-24 from a Trek hybrid. It shows wear, but the 38-tooth sprocket still has some service life left. If only it could be freed from the albatrosses of its conjoined brethren, it would be a good fit for my current winter beater bike project.

I started by clamping the crank to a table. The fact that the pedal was still attached actually made it easier to secure it, so I'll pretend that I planned that. Next, I took a cutoff wheel to the 24-tooth sprocket, slicing it away close to its center.

I then tried to drill out the spot welds that held the 32-tooth sprocket to the biggest one, but didn't like how that was going. After accidentally drilling completely through the 38-tooth ring, I went back to the table and cut and ground it away with the cutoff wheel.

I ended up making five cuts and then breaking each fifth off with a big pair of pliers. An angle grinder would have been nice for the latter stages, but I didn't have one handy at the time. I made do with the cutoff wheel and cleaned up the sharp edges with a hand file.


I cleaned and sanded the remaining 38-tooth chainwheel, masked off the aluminum crank and primed and painted the freshly -exposed steel. I painted it blue because there was some blue Krylon handy. Whatever the color, a protective layer of paint was a must, given the corrosive salt bath it will endure on a cheap winter beater.


If I owned a drill press and had nice drill bits, I might have been tempted to drill a bunch of holes in it for some retro component-lightening flair, but I there is only so much time I'm willing to spend on this particular component. It's noticeably lighter as it is. This took about an hour from start to finish. I trial fit it to the bike, and it looks pretty good. Other than needing to swap the bottom bracket spindle for a narrower one (for a better chainline), I'm happy with the outcome of this experiment. The end result is that this part will be used again, which was the goal.


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Expedition speed

I'm not going to attempt to take credit for the term "expedition speed", but I'm going to do all that I can to propagate it. Dario and I first heard Salem mention it last Thursday whilst we rode slowly through the beautiful and shotgun filled Glastonbury Meadows.



If I understand correctly, expedition speed is another way to say that you're going slow. However, unlike regular going slow, you must have an intent look on your face, gritted teeth and an inflated sense of importance. You probably should wear some wool for good measure. It's perfect for riding this time of year.



A nice thing about expedition speed is that you don't even have to go very far if you believe that you life is part of an ongoing expedition. Thus, my ride to work this morning as well as my mountain bike ride at the reservoir yesterday were all part of the same expedition. The same went for my ride with El Prez and Dario on Saturday, the snowy powerline ride last Tuesday, the hike I took on Sunday with Johanna and the trip across the street today to buy a sandwich. Heady and philosophical, right? I mean, I have no idea where I'm going.

Also, unlike an expedition, expedition speed doesn't require you to carry camping gear or ride a Surly Big Dummy. That'd be totally inconvenient.

I think this may be a little bit like Rapha and their epics, but we do it mainly in color and have mountain bikes. I'd gladly switch to black and white if Rapha started giving me some free clothes. I think my cell phone camera even works better in black and white.

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Unrelated, but two observations:

1) Those of you who frequent the reservoir are probably familiar with the very rideable two foot drop on the blue trail about midway along the ridge. Well, the big winds and falling ice (or something) has fell two trees right there, so you can't ride up the hill on the other side, they effect made a 50 foot fence. I'm wondering if a chain saw will be needed or a log stack can be made. Any thoughts those of you who are good at trail maintenance? Should I start being a CT-NEMBA trail ambassador around here? Do they have enough of them?

Drop off in the background.

Fallen trees.

2) The NYT's Spokes blog is generally lame (like the beat bike blog), but they had a very interesting post today about the history of bicycle clubs in the US. I guess the League of American Bicyclists did a lot to maintain the color barrier in cycling (though they have apologized)... sort of like how they want to make cycling in Connecticut seem terrible. Read more!

Ice Bikey Goodness and Free Food Too!

So we are in the middle of a halfway through the winter warm week, what better time to announce the next Ice Bike Breakfast brought to you by the CCBA?

Next Friday, January 29, 2010. Come on down to JoJo's on Pratt Street in Hartford for free breakfast and a chance to talk to other year round cyclists. 700-900 AM, just tell the good JoJo's folks that you are with the CCBA breakfast group (or just say, "I am with the bike people") and have some fun shooting the breeze with like minded souls! Who knows, it might even be cold again by then.....

Sorry to have been offline for a while. Reconfiguring and downsizing the fleet considerably. If anyone here has an interest in a sweet GT mountain bike set up for winter riding (spikes, fenders, the whole nine) or a tricked out Schwinn Homegrown Mountain bike, I have both for sale!

That mixte pic in the previous post is sweet. I have rebuilt and sold a couple of those over the years and also built myself a sheldon brown tandem, I wish interstatement well on that endeavor!! Read more!

Bikes Outside: Mixte Up (against a fence)

I often stop to gawk at bikes locked to the bike racks and fences of Hartford and beyond. When talking bikes with friends, it's common for one of us to say, "I saw a cool old blahdiddyblah road bike outside of the library the other day, I've always liked those..." so I thought I would make a series out of documenting some of the street seen velocipedes in Hartford. Barring my coming up with a more clever name, I'm calling the series "Bikes Outside."

I'm shamelessly borrowing this concept from Jalopnik's Down on the Street series, where street-parked classic cars are documented. The rules will be similar. The bikes have to be seen out and about. This is all about bicycles being used for their more utilitarian intended purposes. Bikes on display for sale in front of a shop or at a flea market don't count (I can still post them if they are awesome, they just won't be eligible for this series). Maybe your own bike will be spotted sometime.

Our first entry was spotted in the Northeast neighborhood near the Windsor line. It has two features from the list of things that make me like a bike, in that it has a lugged frame and it is a mixte. I'm not familiar with the Cambridge brand (my search engine attempts all led to a [presumably unrelated] bike shop in Cambridge, MA), but it has an entry level bike boom-era look to it. The center-pull brakes are Cambridge-branded, but look identical to some late 70's Dia Compe's I have. The fancy head tube badge and proper-sounding name show its upscale aspirations. Someday I want to join two steel mixte frames of this caliber and make a Sheldon Brown-style D.I.Y. tandem. I would avoid using Peugeots or Motobecanes (as much as I do like them) because modifying frames and piecing together a tandem drivetrain would be difficult enough without having to find French-threaded parts. A couple of beaters like this Cambridge or some neglected Panasonic or Univega mixte frames would be nice donors for such a project. I acquired an old Bridgestone mixte a while back, but the frame isn't steel and it's far too nice to part out or modify. I kind of want to hang it over the mantel and just look at it for a while.

The limp brake lever and slack rear brake cable mean that this Cambridge has only one functioning brake, a disturbingly common affliction among street-parked (and ridden) bikes in Hartford. I have wondered about what to do about this. Maybe I could make some cards or tags to leave on brake-impaired bikes directing them somewhere for cheap or free repairs. Perhaps a pool of functional unwanted brake parts could be established. I'm guessing this brake-impairment is usually due to lack of money or repair know-how on the part of the bike owner, and I'd hate to see someone get in an accident for want of a few simple parts or adjustments.


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Keney Park in Winter

An appointment near our city's northeastern corner ended earlier than expected, giving me a few extra minutes to enjoy the ride to my next stop. In such a circumstance, there's no better route than one through Keney Park.

I rode through the northern entrance in Windsor and took the paved road past the cricket fields, pausing to inspect a puzzling milk crate full of tropical produce sitting atop some fresh-split wood. The traffic noise faded quickly, and there were few other people around to disturb the silence. Even Tower Ave. was unusually quiet as I made my way between the upper and lower park.
In the southern section of the park, I took the nature/ fitness path. Nobody has bothered to clear the snow from this and many other paths in the park. I guess that's not very good from a park maintenance standpoint, but to be honest, It was kind of nice that way. There was just enough snow for ambiance without making pedaling significantly harder. The lack of seasonal leaves opened up the view to the horse corral. At the southernmost end of the park I pedaled hard and fishtailed the bike on the black ice-covered walkways. Again, this is not very safe or good maintenance on the city's part, but I found it entertaining.


When I lived in New Jersey, my friends and I would avoid the Jersey shore like the plague until after Labor Day. It was then that we were free to fly our kites and enjoy the warm water without traffic or interruptions. Parks in the winter can be like that. Most people don't think to enjoy them this time of year, so you can have the whole place to yourself.

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We're definitely the best blog in Hartford, so vote for us in the Hartford Advocate Readers' poll. You can do it online. Read more!

PowerPoint to the People

This past Tuesday evening found me in the grand environs of The Bushnell for the Bicycle Friendly Communities Symposium. The CCBA email I had gotten about the event didn't go into a whole lot of detail, but it was close to home and seemed worthy of attention. It was time well spent.

The last symposium I attended at The Bushnell was an iQuilt presentation sometime last year. As the only one who had biked to that event, I was compelled to point out that The Bushnell had no bike rack. I sidestepped the bike locking issue by walking there last night, but was wondering if they had gotten around to adding a proper rack. While that was not the case, I was impressed and surprised to see that they were allowing bikes to park indoors. Well done!


Inside I saw faces familiar from (Ice) Bike to Work and other CCBA events on my way to my seat. Kerri was in the house taking notes for Real Hartford. Sandy Fry welcomed everyone and introduced Tom Maziarz, Director of Transportation for the Capitol Region Council of Governments (or DOT4CRCOG for short) said a few words about their work on "Bike and ped" issues. Having walked to the event, I wasn't sure I like being known as a "Ped," but I certainly do have issues, so I let it go. His main point was a need for better awareness on the part of both the public and especially the decision makers in local government. Up next, CCBA President Anne Hayes said a few words about their recent efforts and achievements like Complete Streets and the (sadly, oft ignored) Three Foot Passing Law before introducing their featured guest Andy Clarke, president of The League of American Bicyclists.

Clarke began with a brief overview of the League's history (founded by our man Albert Pope, thank you very much) and their mission of bike advocacy and education. He launched into his rather comprehensive PowerPoint presentation by speaking at length about L.A.B's Bicycle Friendly America program and how communities were rated and ranked. He explained how cities apply for the "Bike Friendly" status and how the League helps them achieve and raise their respective rankings. Clarke cited some familiar positive examples from the US and abroad, but was quick to point out how sick to death everyone must be of hearing about Copenhagen and Portland. That said, he pointed out two important things: Firstly, these cities have reaped tremendous benefits from gearing thoughtful infrastructural planning to the everyday use of bicycles. Secondly, they were not always like that. He showed photos of traffic-choked European city streets from a decade or so ago to help illustrate what a dramatic transformation can take place with the right actions.


The presentation moved from what has been done to what needs to be done to increase bicycle use and awareness. One matter that was touched upon was that many people feel intimidated by bicycling in different ways, all of which I could identify with. Risk of injury from motor vehicles is always on people's minds with good reason. The image of cycling as a hardcore competitive sport can serve to alienate the would-be everyday bike rider as well. Clarke spoke of surveys that showed that many customers rate visiting their local bike shops as an unpleasant experience. I've had all of these experiences myself, and I'm decidedly more of a bike nut than the average U.S. citizen. Clarke showed examples of humorous ad campaigns geared toward getting people out of their cars and onto bikes. The main (and obvious) point is that we need to get more people riding bicycles. Let it be fun, let it be social. Let it be something that isn't a huge commitment or a daunting undertaking. Identify the obstacles to getting more people on bikes and work to overcome them.

Make cycling the most convenient option and people will ride.
Go back and reread that last sentence out loud. It's important.


There were a few handouts, the most informative being the League's "Bicycle Friendly America Yearbook." I have not yet read it from cover to cover, but skimming it showed profiles of 95 Bicycle Friendly Communities and 13 Bicycle Friendly Businesses, and a hell of a lot of ideas and standards to aspire to. All of this information and more can be found on their website.

There were no bombshells or revelations here. There were a lot of useful ideas and examples as to how we could try to make bicycling in the Hartford area a better experience. Hartford's specific issues were not really discussed per se, but there was nothing so unique or revolutionary about the ideas that bike friendly communities had implemented that would prevent us from adapting them here. There is strength, safety and overall benefit in numbers. I'll be happier when I don't have to improvise a bike rack at many destinations or venture outside of city lines to pick up a few bike parts or accessories on short notice. Hartford's bike scene is small. There's a certain allure to being part of a small group, but bicycling as a whole should not be that small group. I'd love to see bicycling become ordinary and ubiquitous enough to support multiple thriving fringe elements. The fanatics and purists have been there all along and they are important, but it's detrimental to cycling if most people are not comfortable making a bike part of their everyday routine. We can all do something better to spread the word, and would all do well to think about how.

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Riding bicycles in Hartford

The subtitle of our blog is "Riding bicycles in Hartford". We talk about it less and less because, well, we've got a lot of posts at this point. It'd be boring. However, every so often there's an affront to riding a bicycle in Hartford and we must respond. Chris will be responding in greater detail soon, but I'd like to offer some preliminary anger.


Recently, The League of American Bicyclists came to Hartford to talk about making things bicyclely friendly. I didn't go and I'm not even sure if I heard about this event. Through our friend Kerri at Real Hartford, who went, I learned that the League ranked Connecticut 44th (out of 50 states) in terms of bicycle friendliness. Much like an American in Europe, I am compelled to defend my homeland.


How can this be? What the hell? What does this even mean? Why am I standing up for Connecticut even though I just got hit by a car? These questions are just for rhetorical flourish, but I am pretty perplexed by all these states that rank ahead of Connecticut. I will admit that I have not ridden my bike in all 50 states, not even close, but I have ridden in several states that rank far ahead of Connecticut, like Maine. Third place? Come on! I have ridden in greater Portland a bit and it felt a hell of a lot like riding in greater Hartford. It didn't feel fourteen times better. Drivers were about the same and the infrastructure felt about the same. They had some bridges with bike lanes and we have some bridges with bike lanes. They have some bike paths and we have some bike paths, etc.

Connecticut probably does not have as many cycling advocacy dorks as other states, because the vast majority of people who commute to work drive. Whatever. We're a hypocritical "progressive" state. However, our aged, not very wide roads are pretty easily traversed by a bicycle. Compared to other states that rank much higher, our roads are much better for having a relatively dense population. Greater DC? They have some nice bike infrastructure, but if you're not in the more affluent places that have those improvements, good luck riding on the 17 lane roads. I suppose it's conceivable that a state deserves a higher ranking if it has made an effort to address bike problems because of it's really wide roads.


My 5 mile commute (round trip) is pleasant, very short and is entirely in Hartford. Yet, when I ride to work from my parents' house in Avon, it's 20 miles and more or less without incident (unless someone takes a left in front of you). During weekends when the weather is more pleasant, cyclists flock to out where my parents live. They wouldn't do that if the roads were unrideable. Although, I do admit that the distracted drivers of large, powerful vehicles in the affluent suburbs are occasionally menacing. We really need to pass and enforce some distracted driving legislation.


I don't know. I'm totally perplexed. It would seem that a ranking of 44 would that it's barely possible to even ride a bike in Connecticut, but I do it all the time with considerable enjoyment- especially with the pleasant snow conditions as of late.

Heck, Florida ranks 12 places ahead of Connecticut and it's the most dangerous place to ride a bike in the country.

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Dad's Trek: the series

This is the kick-off post for my overhaul of one battered Trek 720. I see a lot of bikes of this vintage around town, and many, if not most, of them are in poor condition. I've lost track of how many times I have seen neglected 80's and 90's bikes with one cantilever brake missing or dangling loose (occasionally both!). I cringe when I hear the clacking of rusty chains and dry bearings on one of the aging Peugeots or Univegas in my neighborhood that have gone from bike-boom glory to hard-luck mount. I also see a lot of cheap big-box-store type bikes around here, and I think people would do better to fix up decent-quality older bikes than to keep buying really crappy new ones. I have had conversations with people who have spent many hundreds of dollars getting bikes like these extensively fixed up. I hope this series will prove useful for those who have put off needed repairs or maintenance for fear of racking up big repair bills when money is tight. If you are loaded and flush with cash, by all means show some love for our area bike shops. We like having them around.

Here are my basic goals for this series and this project:

• Make the bike as good as new mechanically, upgrading components as needed.
  
• Reusing parts when possible without compromising safety or durability. This will be as much for the sake of reducing waste as for the sentimental goal of saving what can be saved of the original bike.
• Getting the bike ready for one loaded tour and for many more years of daily service.
• Learning some new skills, strengthening some existing knowledge, and sharing this learning process on the Beat Bike Blog.
  
  

Since this is a tribute of sorts, and since this will always be "Dad's bike" to me, his legacy will inevitably guide my choices through the course of this project. He was a child of the depression, so I will try to be frugal in my expenditures (mostly). He was an engineer, so form will follow function (albeit closely). He took pride and care in his workmanship when he worked with his hands, so the work should be done with care. I inherited his tendency to overbuild and over-engineer things, so sweating the details will be both appropriate and involuntary. He was very safety-conscious, so brakes, cables, tires and the like have to be in top notch working order. He enjoyed the outdoors all of his life, so this bike must be ridden! On that last point, I'll probably exempt it from snow rides, at least when road salt is present. I have a winter beater in the works for that purpose.

Soon, I'll finish disassembling the bike and see exactly what needs to be done. I have already accumulated and set aside some new and used parts for it over the past several months, so I need to dig those out and remember what I have. Next, I'm going to strip it down to the frame and get that into shape for reassembly. In my next installment, we can see what I find. I'll get back to you soon. Read more!

Starting 2010 late

So, I guess I'm done with my hiatus. I rode my bike to work yesterday and went mountain biking after work (and as long as they haven't changed, the conditions are awesome for riding a bike in the snow). Those are pretty run of the mill things for me, leading me to believe I'm inching back to normal. Some people seem to bounce right back from car altercations, but I suppose I'm emotionally fragile. The Surly, on other hand, isn't going to recover from the event. Johanna and I went to South Carolina between xmas and new years, which was nice because there are bike paths and beaches, for people like me who are temporarily terrified of riding on roads.


Last year around this time I wrote some reflective stuff about 2008 and what would happen in 2009. In terms of riding a bike, 2009 was pretty good. I met some new people to ride with: Dario, Salem & Peter and rode in interesting places. I seemed to also have become better at riding a bike, or at least faster in my amateur races. In the races I entered, I finished on the podium in all but three. D2R2 was a big a disappointment for me, but there always this year. I'm better aware of my shortcomings and ignorance, so hopefully I'll ingest some electrolytes this year.

Hartford 'Cross was a veritable success and I'm excited about putting it on again. There was good feedback on how to make it better, but also many people who were excited about it happening again in 2010.

One sad result of this year seems to be the I've alienated a lot of people who used to ride with me. Chiefly, Johanna has no desire to ride with me any more. So, resolution #1 is to stop being a jerk.

What's your plan for 2010?

Oh, and in political news, I like Merrick Alpert's walking style.

I walked here, not Merrick.

And further, I really hope that I can get the police report from Farmington. I don't want to be stuck in insurance hell.

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My Favorite Bike

I have owned dozens of bicycles, and I have pined for and fantasy-built hundreds more. If someone asks me which is my favorite however, the answer is easy. It is this beat-up mid 1990's Trek 720. It's a 700c wheel hybrid that gradually acquired fenders, smooth tires and cut-down straight handlebar during its evolution toward daily beater/ city bike status. It is not particularly cool or aesthetically pleasing. Nobody looks at it and says, "Hey, nice bike!" A couple of years back, I was walking out of the annual Warren Miller film at The Bushnell with a small group of friends. One of the group, an avid cyclist from the suburbs asked with concern if I was under a constant threat of bike theft. I told her that I felt my bike was pretty safe. She was unconvinced until we reached the Trek locked to a signpost. "Oh, I see what you mean." she said.

In popular cycling lore, hybrids vie with "comfort bikes" as the dorkiest thing this side of a recumbent. I don't care who scoffs at it, I like it. This is my favorite bike because it has proven sturdy and reliable through hard, year-round usage in all kinds of weather. Finally, most significantly, this bike is an emotional favorite. Its sentimental value is off the charts.
This was my father's last bike.

My parents introduced me to cycling as a passenger around the age of two (the same year they first put me on skis) Around the age of 5, I got my own bike, a hand-me-down moss green Ross banana seat bike of a late 60's vintage. I grew up riding the streets and county park pathways with Mom and Dad, listening to the reassuring Sturmey Archer song tick-tick-ticking away on their matching brown his and hers early 70's Raleigh Sports 3 speeds (if his had not been sold at a family garage sale unbeknownst to me, it would be hands-down my favorite bike). When my Dad was approaching 70, he wanted more gearing choices for his aging knees, so he and my Mom bought a pair of 21-speed Trek 720 hybrids. By his late 70's his knees didn't feel up to bike riding anymore and he handed the well-preserved 720 off to me. I proceeded to give away the old Shogun road bike that had been my previous commuter and began riding the Trek full-time.

My father passed away this past April several days after turning 83. He was active to the end (mad props: he continued skiing through the age of 81), felled by a massive heart attack in Manhattan as he spent a night on the town with Mom for his birthday. We miss him terribly, but take great comfort and great example from a life well-lived. We should all do so well.

By this past spring, Dad's old Trek was a bit tired. Years of rain and road salt and hard usage had worn out two drivetrains and left two pairs of rims with gouged sides and rusted spokes. It seriously needed an overhaul, and as I began collecting new parts for it, I had an idea. My father was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts and lived his last decades in Glen Rock, NJ, with a quarter century or so spent in Brooklyn in the middle. I decided it would be both a fitting tribute and generally therapeutic for me to ride Dad's old bike from Glen Rock to New Bedford (via Brooklyn, of course) staying with friends and relatives or camping out along the way. This past Memorial Day was to be the original start date (apropos for honoring a WWII veteran) of my trip, but an employment opportunity arose that would have been foolish to pass up (I was unemployed at the time--2009 was not my favorite year in several ways). I began to disassemble the bike and got no further.

So now the bike sits in pieces, and I admit I've hit something of a mental block. I have a daunting surplus of goals stacked up for 2010 but I'm going to deem making this bike function again one of my first short-term resolutions. In addition to getting my cherished beater back on the road, I think this could be a fine opportunity to write some step-by-step how-to articles for the Beat Bike Blog. I think I will start with the wheels. I recently got a good deal on a new pair of Sun CR18 36 hole rims and have already spoken to a local shop with a solid inventory of spokes and knowledge. I plan on paying them a visit soon, and I'll surely keep you posted.
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Happy New Year

Best wishes for many happy, healthy and safe miles for you and yours for 2010. Read more!

Out with the old, in with the older

I spent several days in the greater NYC metro area of my youth catching up with friends and family. I drove down since Megabus has eliminated their super convenient Hartford service. While I wasn't particularly in any mood to drive, this ended up being a good thing for a couple of reasons. As it worked out, driving the car enabled me to deliver some bulky items I've been meaning to get rid of, and ultimately bring home just as many bulky items. Oh well.

One of the first things I realized upon arrival at my Mom's house was that I had forgotten my own backpack when I loaded the carfull of stuff I carted down. Not willing to milk that many days out of the clothes on my back, I made a Christmas Eve trip to a couple of thrift stores to assemble a few days' worth of wardrobe on the cheap. I scored some more wool clothes to expand my wintertime outdoor clothing options, which was a bonus.

At the second store, a longtime thrift institution of sorts in Paterson, I found a rack full of rickety bikes between the men's clothing and housewares. Most of them were battered department store quality bikes that were not very good to begin with and were far worse for wear and neglect, but two of them caught my eye. One was a Tyler children's bike, only the second example of this Polish marque I have seen in person.

The other thrift store standout was a vintage Firestone single speed cruiser frame with an assortment of newer used parts affixed to it.


The front fender was mashed up from the store's ham-fisted display method of hanging the bikes over an angle iron frame. The frame had a pretty head tube badge, but was otherwise slathered in many chipped layers of poorly applied paint. I was sort of tempted to adopt it and save it from such an undignified fate, but then I saw the asking price of $79! I examined the tag carefully, but found no decimal point or other factor that would point to a more reasonable price. The moment a thrift store thinks something is "collectible" is akin to a precocious child realizing or thinking they are cute. The magic is lost.


It was good that the ratty cruiser bike was overpriced, as it wouldn't have left enough room in the car for the two bikes that two of my friends gave me during the remainder of my visit. The first is a hard-luck case, a sorely neglected urban beater of a mountain bike that a friend's roommate abandoned when she moved overseas. It was homely enough that it was able to sit unlocked and undisturbed outside of their Jersey City apartment building, which is saying something. I was hopelessly charmed by the combination of a lugged Bridgestone frame with a Biopace crankset, so I dragged the seatless bike flat tires and all on the Path train and the subway to my Brooklyn crash space.


My friend in Flatbush has an amazing knack for finding really cool stuff for cheap or free. Limited storage space means he regularly passes his unwanted finds along to friends on equal terms, so it's only a matter of time before he re-homes something really cool that he can no longer justify keeping around. The other morning, he offered me an old folding bike he had sitting in a relative's garage out in Queens. We met up there and dug it out as I was heading homeward. I have been on a folding bike kick for a while now, so any old folding bike would have made me happy. That said, I was pretty well blown away to discover that this was a 1940's BSA paratrooper bike! It had been "civilianized" with black paint and chrome rims and fenders at some point in the past, but a few minutes of fingernail-scratching revealed the remnants of the original olive-drab paint and a WWII-era serial number. It's in rough shape now and missing most of its original parts (including the sweet "BSA" chainwheel), but I'm really looking forward to restoring this bike when time and money allow it. I found a couple of websites with pictures and info, so I can gather some information (and parts, if I'm lucky) in the meantime.



Happy New Year, by the way!



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