“just how many bicycles do you own?”

it’s a question i get often, usually when entering my basement for the first time or i show up on a bike someone has never seen before. the answer is four… ish. i’m looking at getting a new bicycle to add to my stable, but i haven’t decided yet. before i can go into a discussion of what my new bike desires are, it might be useful to review with you, dear reader, the other machines that i adore:

1. the fixie. this is my favorite bike, the most-ridden and consequently also the best-maintained. it’s my daily driver. an old 57cm steel lugged schwinn traveller, kitted out with surly hubs and velocity deep-v rims, bullhorn bars, and a brooks professional saddle. it’s got a 1/8″ 48t chainring in front, and on the rear is a flip-flop hub with a 19t and 17t cogs, the latter for when i’m riding in portland or racing at greenlake. i love the way this bike looks, and other than needing to move the saddle back a little bit it fits me fantastically. i recently did a bunch of work on it, replacing the front fork, stem, and headset and properly respacing the rear triangle. i’ve probably put around $800 into this bike, overall.
2. the road bike. it’s an older cannondale road frame i bought off craigslist for $180. when i bought it it was set up as a seven-speed, but with a sexy dura-ace/campagnolo front wheel. i went out and got a ritchey ocr rear rim for it, an 8spd nashbar cassette, and a double chainring and downtube shifters from recycled. andre got me a pair of cane creek aero levers, and now it’s a quick road ride. unfortunately, i almost never go out on road rides so it mostly sits unused until something happens where my fixie is broken. it’s the current candidate for being replaced with something more flexible.
3. the police bike. a perennial favorite, andre gave me this when he built up his ben-the-angry-hippie surly 1×1 clone. it’s an older raleigh technium police frame set up as a singlespeed mountain bike. it’s pretty creaky and i’ll probably break it in half like my last technium, but it’s fun to ride. i recently rebuilt the failing rear rim and swapped the chainring and single cog to a ‘magic length’, allowing me to get rid of the chain tensioner. for a while now it’s been in need of a tuneup to get rid of the creaking, new handlebars, and a swap of the knobby mountain tires for some kenda k-rad’s. if it ever does break in half i’ll finally give into temptation and replace it with a surly pugsley. right now the police bike’s main claim to fame is that it has nashbar combo flat/clipless pedals on it, so i can ride it in my chacos.
4. the cruiser, a.k.a. gimpcycle-1. this bike is my perpetual project bike. i can never quite figure out what i want to do with it, but it’s handy to have around. a 1969 schwinn cruiser, solid steel and a bunch of character (rust). it was sitting there on the free rack, and how could i ever pass up a deal like that? i found an old brooks saddle to put on it, some better handlebars, and gave it a solid cleaning. i have a surly singlespeed wheel that i’ve threaded a fixed cog onto for dinking around at low rpm’s, but it’s not really a very rideable fixed gear. most recently i removed one crank arm and added a bmx peg to ride around on while i healed up my knee, and i’ve yet to convert it back. the end result for this bike really ought to be a sturmey-archer 3spd with coaster brake, but i need to find the hub and build it up.

i’ve also got another 3spd cruiser, a 1963 schwinn racer that i’ve needed to sell for a while now. so, those are the bikes i’ve got. now it’s time to think about the next bike i’ll get.

a super awesome .83 ride tonight, tons of miles and good times – it seemed like everyone had a smile on their face the whole time. plus i came home with a package of grand central bolo rolls and a nalgene full of espresso chocolate, both from dumpsters. delicious!

another nice feature of tonight’s ride was the restraint on the drinking front. we had a relatively brief dinner & beer stop at stellars in georgetown, but it was a tiny thing compared to our typical bachhanalia.

i think this was a good thing for me, and i’m resolving to cut back on the drinking front a bit this week. i know that when i don’t like how i feel it’s always a bit more tempting to grab a cold pint or seven, and while i surely don’t like how i feel these days, i also know that it’s not helping anything. unfortunately, i don’t know what will help anything. i fear that some of my current ideas are not very sound.

i’ve added a redacted category now. it’s for all the times i want to post tons of things but ultimately think better of most everything i want to say. at one point my wordpress had five incomplete posts, each containing one paragraph and some pithy title stolen from a song, book, or film.

i saw snakes on a plane tonight. it was not too bad. it’d have been improved with a slight change in company, but i guess you could append that to the rest of my week as well. here’s trusting that next week will hurt a little less.