My Bicycle

Speaking of riding my bike, let me tell you about the beautiful work of art I have the privilege of riding.  

Well, let me go back even farther.  Take you on a tour of my history with bikes.  

I learned to ride on a little miniature cycle when I was 5 or 6.  I never had training wheels as it was pretty hard to fall off even for a kid.  That lasted for maybe a year before I got my first "REAL" bike.

It was some no name monstrosity.  It was a single speed BMX style frame, pedal back brakes, weird curved handle bars.   I vaguely remember going to get it in our Toyota Corona station wagon.  I have no idea how much my parents paid for it, but given how poor we were back then, anything was dear.

That bike served me until I was in 6th grade when I got a Schwinn mountain bike.  This was 1991 before mountain bikes were everywhere and before Schwinn became a bit of a joke (well, again.)  21 speeds, yes TWENTY ONE FLIPPING SPEEDS!  It wasn't top of the line, but it was a $400 bike in the early 90s.  It was pretty nice.

I loved riding.  Mostly I'd bomb around the gravel roads at our house outside of town.  I'd ride up into town to play with friends.  It was awesome.  

When I was 14 I was old enough to go on our church's bike trip.  The ride is three and a half days of ~70 miles, 90 miles, 100 miles and 45 miles across Illinois and Indiana back roads.

What did I do?  I put slightly less knobby tires and rolled away.  I had a blast!  Two years of that on my mountain bike and I decided it was time for something with skinny tires.

I picked up a steel framed Giant for a little over $300.  It was light blue, whatever was below Shimano105 components in 1996.  It was a dream!  I could go so fast, it was so easy, oh what I had been missing out on!

I of course had to buy aero bars and clipless pedals (which incidentally "click" when you lock into them) which contributed to my first crash.  Aero bars are stupid unless you're doing triathlons or time trials.  They were quickly scrapped after that mishap.

Like every good 17 year old I wanted my senior pictures taken with my bike.  They were horrible (I mean, just flat out gawdawful) and to top it off, we drove the car into the garage with my bike on top of it.  Crumpled the frame.  (Its a tribute to Yakima racks as the rack wasn't phased a bit.)  

I was devastated!  My beloved bicycle!  Its dead!

Fortunately the guy who co-sponsored the church ride with my dad had a spare Trek frame lying about.  We swapped over my parts and I was rolling around on an Aluminum Trek 1100.  I hated that thing.   Light weight but rough as hell ride.   I still rode a ton, but it wasn't the same.  

I'm supposed to ride a STEEL horse dammit. And not one of the motor powered ones.  

After a year on the cobbled together bike the guy who sold me the frame was "upgrading."  He was getting himself a titanium Lightspeed and was selling his ride.  Was I interested?

WAS I interested??  YES PLEASE!

The ride he was selling was a custom Waterford 1200.  Reynold's steel lugged frame.  Campagnolo crankset, Shimano 105 derailleurs, Sun Rims.  I jumped at the chance.  

$900 later, my baby was mine.  MINE MINE MINE!  All MINE!  

Waterford is a custom bike shop.  They used to make high end Schwinn Paramounts amongst other things but during Schwinn's financial troubles bought themselves out and started making things under their own name.  Their stuff is top notch and beautiful.  

A few thousand miles later she's still rolling good.   But, rekindling my love also means I feel the need to give her some new parts.

I'm seriously wanting to put a whole new drivetrain on her.  I want Campagnolo, but I don't know if I can afford it.

No matter what, next year, I'm going to be rolling on the frame, but entirely new chain rings and gears.