she'll need a crane (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bluejayway) wrote,@ 2009-08-27 22:53:00 |
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the bell tolled for my bicycle.
rest in peace, you blue bike of love and freedom.
jon & I were riding home to get soft at each other for just a couple minutes before he went home, and I thought that he heard me when I said "we're going right up here baby" and he didn't & ran into my back wheel in the most minute of ways - we were going between 5 and 10 mph, probably. we ride low & slow sometimes. moving on, the derailleur hanger (the tiny teeny weeny baby part of the frame that sticks off the very back & holds the derailleur), which had been bent & then bent back into place many times, and I found out later, very seriously wrecked before I even owned it, bent all the way into the spokes, thrusting the derailleur in there, which then got thrown around the wheel, which then snapped the chain. luckily none of this had anything to do with my brakes, and I stopped immediately, and fighting back tears, carried my beautiful, broken bicycle back to beigeland.
on steel bike frames, because steel is both extremely strong and malleable, typically the hangers do just fine. and if they get a little bent, you can whip 'em back into shape with no problem. you can do this many times.
with bikey, this had been done too many times. several times, in fact, since I have met jon (seven months ago, y'all), has the hanger needed adjustment. not a good sign. that the minibabyest crash, where nobody was hurt & everybody was going extremely slowly & the amount of force was SO, SO minimal, means that my derailleur hanger was weak as crap and had that shit coming to it anyway.
so now my motherfucking GORGEOUS bright blue univega, out of which I have ridden the SHIT, is effectively totaled. this breaks my heart. having to leave at EXACTLY a time to catch the bus and stressfully jogging there at 6:40am (because I never, ever give myself enough time for a bus) has been sad. I mean, it's actually incredible that I only take one bus, and it takes me, essentially, door to door from home to work, and getting some reading done on the commute, too, is fucking awesome. however, my bike ride in to work fills me with the most incredible energy, and getting to, at the end of the goddamn day, get on my fucking BIKE for an asskicking time of gloryfun and flipping off the occasional dickbag, is such an amazing way to physically get out some result-of-passive-aggression frustration.
so. all day monday I researched bikes. jon suggested a surly so I looked at those. I figured he had a long-haul trucker in mind, and those are darn good bikes, so I was looking at that, but was dismayed to find that the wheel size changes under a certain frame size (54cm). I want 700cc wheels, because they're big and really attractive... and because then I can buy colored rims/other accessories for them much more easily than with 27" wheels. although jon did find some deep v's for his 26" wheels on his karakoram mountain bike he's building up, but anyway, 700s are sexy.
so I found another bike that surly sells, and no matter the frame size (I need 52), the wheels are 700. the description on the website is hilarious. not sure who it's directed toward, but the description seems to call the surly pacer the ugly stepchild of the surly line. but y'all, it is lightweight, sleek-as-fuck, and has a dude wearing a dress as the "bikemodel." also it can hold some RACKS, y'all, and the derailleur hanger? thick as a gordita, my friends. this is a bike that I could potentially hang on to for the rest of my life. on tuesday I came into citybikes & paid for it, and it will arrive in the next few days, awaiting jon's capable & my learning hands to build it up, for me to ride into the sunset whenever such an opportunity may arise.
and my old bike? turns out I can make it into a single speed, very probably. not a fixed gear, which would actually be sorta cool, but the whole hanger thing weakened that area too much for a fixed gear. which is fine, because I don't really think I'm a human what needs a track (or facsimile) bike. at least not at this point. but it will be really nice to have a second bike, eventually, when I buy more parts. oh god, I am addicted, y'all, to bicycles. obsessed. it's all I think about. I buy more bike shit all the fucking time, now, and lawrdee, I am so happy with this recent practical, if expensive (way less expensive than car ownership!) hobby. it would be an amazing thing to never own a car.
bedtime, y'all. pictures of my new bike v soon.
rest in peace, you blue bike of love and freedom.
jon & I were riding home to get soft at each other for just a couple minutes before he went home, and I thought that he heard me when I said "we're going right up here baby" and he didn't & ran into my back wheel in the most minute of ways - we were going between 5 and 10 mph, probably. we ride low & slow sometimes. moving on, the derailleur hanger (the tiny teeny weeny baby part of the frame that sticks off the very back & holds the derailleur), which had been bent & then bent back into place many times, and I found out later, very seriously wrecked before I even owned it, bent all the way into the spokes, thrusting the derailleur in there, which then got thrown around the wheel, which then snapped the chain. luckily none of this had anything to do with my brakes, and I stopped immediately, and fighting back tears, carried my beautiful, broken bicycle back to beigeland.
on steel bike frames, because steel is both extremely strong and malleable, typically the hangers do just fine. and if they get a little bent, you can whip 'em back into shape with no problem. you can do this many times.
with bikey, this had been done too many times. several times, in fact, since I have met jon (seven months ago, y'all), has the hanger needed adjustment. not a good sign. that the minibabyest crash, where nobody was hurt & everybody was going extremely slowly & the amount of force was SO, SO minimal, means that my derailleur hanger was weak as crap and had that shit coming to it anyway.
so now my motherfucking GORGEOUS bright blue univega, out of which I have ridden the SHIT, is effectively totaled. this breaks my heart. having to leave at EXACTLY a time to catch the bus and stressfully jogging there at 6:40am (because I never, ever give myself enough time for a bus) has been sad. I mean, it's actually incredible that I only take one bus, and it takes me, essentially, door to door from home to work, and getting some reading done on the commute, too, is fucking awesome. however, my bike ride in to work fills me with the most incredible energy, and getting to, at the end of the goddamn day, get on my fucking BIKE for an asskicking time of gloryfun and flipping off the occasional dickbag, is such an amazing way to physically get out some result-of-passive-aggression frustration.
so. all day monday I researched bikes. jon suggested a surly so I looked at those. I figured he had a long-haul trucker in mind, and those are darn good bikes, so I was looking at that, but was dismayed to find that the wheel size changes under a certain frame size (54cm). I want 700cc wheels, because they're big and really attractive... and because then I can buy colored rims/other accessories for them much more easily than with 27" wheels. although jon did find some deep v's for his 26" wheels on his karakoram mountain bike he's building up, but anyway, 700s are sexy.
so I found another bike that surly sells, and no matter the frame size (I need 52), the wheels are 700. the description on the website is hilarious. not sure who it's directed toward, but the description seems to call the surly pacer the ugly stepchild of the surly line. but y'all, it is lightweight, sleek-as-fuck, and has a dude wearing a dress as the "bikemodel." also it can hold some RACKS, y'all, and the derailleur hanger? thick as a gordita, my friends. this is a bike that I could potentially hang on to for the rest of my life. on tuesday I came into citybikes & paid for it, and it will arrive in the next few days, awaiting jon's capable & my learning hands to build it up, for me to ride into the sunset whenever such an opportunity may arise.
and my old bike? turns out I can make it into a single speed, very probably. not a fixed gear, which would actually be sorta cool, but the whole hanger thing weakened that area too much for a fixed gear. which is fine, because I don't really think I'm a human what needs a track (or facsimile) bike. at least not at this point. but it will be really nice to have a second bike, eventually, when I buy more parts. oh god, I am addicted, y'all, to bicycles. obsessed. it's all I think about. I buy more bike shit all the fucking time, now, and lawrdee, I am so happy with this recent practical, if expensive (way less expensive than car ownership!) hobby. it would be an amazing thing to never own a car.
bedtime, y'all. pictures of my new bike v soon.
