Legacies...and whether or not they're worth it.

A week ago a friend told me that he had a birthday gift of two hundred dollars he wanted to put towards a new bike. I had some recommendations, but he wasn't interested. Instead he told me about the "beautiful" Peugeot his father had bought years ago as an undergraduate in Southern California. He told me of his father's fondness for it and how he had kept it in the garage all these long years. He really wanted to get it back out on the road. I agreed to take a look at it believing in my hubris that I'd have no trouble getting a garage kept road bike back out on the street, even though it was a french one. So I picked it up yesterday.

I was a little taken aback at first, but got over it. I got my tetanus shot back in January so I am no longer afraid to fondle such rusty objects. The rust and the vines growing through the spokes were strong indication that this thing probably hadn't been kept indoors. I can still see that indeed it must surely have been a beautiful bike in it's prime. My best guess is that it is either a UO8 or a UE8 from the early to mid 70's. (This is a great site to research the Peugeot lineage at). I love its decals and the lugs that resemble a pyramid:

The rims had some cool textures on the braking surface; I have never seen anything like it.

As I stripped it of its superfluous accouterments (generator set-up with headlight/taillight, kickstand etc.) I began to worry about its road worthiness. In my most conservative estimate it would take one hundred and fifty dollars of parts to get it back on the road. It came originally equipped with two plastic Simplex derailleurs both of which now had cracked and rotted bodies. Even more troubling was assuming I would be able to salvage the rear wheel. Its axle's threads had been smashed flat from being too loose in the frame and rolling somewhat with the bearing and the wheel. I believe I could save the cones by grinding off both ends of the axle and placing them on a new axle. I wouldn't bother if it still worked but its bearings are barely still rolling because the grease in them has dried to a consistency near rubber. It's in dire need of over hauling (and I'm not just saying that because I want to), though strangely the front ones still roll freely. Thankfully the cranks and bottom bracket, though extremely rusty, seem fine. I would not want to deal with trying to pull its cottered cranks. The bent chain guard has to go.

After this assessment I wondered whether it was worth the parts and labor. I will do it all for free if he wants it on the street again; I can understand wanting to bond with your father, riding a bike he's passed down. Traditions are one of the most important parts of a family. But even with all those new parts it will still be just a decked out rusty old frame.

...unless he lets me paint it too.

Trying to hone my skills.

I entered NPR's 3-minute fiction contest today.

The rules were simple: Submit a short story 600 words or less that must begin with the line "The nurse left work at 5 o'clock." Winner gets his or her story read on air by James Wood, literary critic for The New Yorker. And an autographed copy of his book, "How Fiction Works."

What I sent in was semi-autobiographical. If I win I'll link to it on the blog. If not I'll just post my entry here.

Fat Chance!

I have recently taken notice of how much I subconciously expect my luck to change. I am so certain that things will turn around for me any day now; but they don't. I play the powerball (lottery). I go to the million dollar free pull at the casino everyday (I did win a free buffet here). I enter to win the red Six Three Zero Amstel Light cruiser at the super market. I mail off entries:

Entering to win the Miller High Life Lucy bicycle.

Somehow I expect for all the good I've tried to do in this life things will actually turn around for me one of these days, that something miraculous will happen to wrench my life out of the stagnant place it has fallen into. But, in the more rational part of my thought processes I know that it won't. I know that the world doesn't work quite so appropriately. And I know that my life will not be improved for some time to come, but still I go on with a perhaps ill fitting smile.

I'm a sucker for loose bearings.

I consider myself very lucky for the relationship I've had with my father. My father was an aircraft mechanic (and an existential hero*) and I was a god-damn fool the day I thought I'd end up anything better through hard work and education. In my youth my father taught me tools and how to fix various engines and to do automotive repair. Apart from his nagging after me about my clothes (I could wear a pair of jeans so eaten up by brake fluid that my testicles were hanging out and my dad would still ask me why I was ruining “good clothes” changing my oil in them) learning these skills has proved invaluable in my personal life. I cannot begin to estimate how much money I've been able to save repairing things myself; which is good because I am perpetually unemployed and always flat broke.

When in adulthood I returned to riding bikes I was lucky enough to have the skills to maintain them myself. One of the ways in which I do that is by taking apart, cleaning, and repacking the bearings at least once a year. I have not, as of yet, owned a bike with sealed bearings and to be completely honest I think I would miss being able to do this. I read time and again about how much smoother and longer lived sealed bearings are but I wonder if that is not due to the laziness of owners grown lax in their maintenance, for if there is one thing in this life you can always count on it is the laziness of man. I also wonder if anyone actually keeps a bike long enough anymore for the life span of loose bearings to be worn-out. Personally I'm not convinced. On a long enough time line the survival rate for every bearing drops to zero. Even your fancy sealed bearings will die a raspy grinding kind of death and you won't have had the pleasure of knowing them intimately inside and out. That being said I wouldn't kick a bike out of bed just for being equipped with sealed ones.

Recently I was lucky enough to witness the ravages of neglect on an unsealed bearing firsthand. I was invited to the house of a friend who I knew biked but had never seen her ride. I asked to see her bike and was informed that it was no longer in working order. I wanted to see it anyway and offered to fix it if I was able. Lead into the garage I found a cruiser roughly thirty years old that had been rescued from a trash heap. On her last outing there had been a catastrophic failure in the drive train portion of the bike. I don't know what failed first and precipitated its other problems but the chain had come off, a spoke had been broken, the arm of the coaster brake had broken free and lost its bracket that connected it to the frame, and the cones had come so loose that the wheel had about a half inch of play back and forth on the rear axle. After picking up some parts from my house I got to work and was able to fix it after an hour or so. Then I went for a test ride to make sure the chain tension was right and that the coaster brake was operating correctly (I didn't want her to smash her pretty little face). All of that checked out and I was amazed to discover the thing was almost completely un-steerable. She was apparently oblivious to this and said it had always been that way. So I offered to take a look at the headset too. After I got the grocery basket off the front end I got the headset out. The top races and bearing were fine but the bottom cage was ground flat and had only one ball bearing left that promptly fell and rolled away to the dark recesses of the floor. Luckily she had another (donor) bike from the trash that I was able to take the races and bearings off of. I doubt it will fare any better in this application though. I also doubt the longevity of a sealed bearing suffering the same amount of neglect.

This is what passes for a headset bearing in North Louisiana.

* The crowning achievement of my philosophy career was a paper I wrote in college all about how my father had awakened the nausea of ultimate responsibility in me by berating me for knocking a charcoal grill and some steaks over. I got a B on it.

The State of Things (wherein I describe why I'm not the yuppie I'd hoped to be).

It seems so funny realizing I'll not be the Baton Rouge or New Orleans yuppie I thought I'd end up; like all of my friends became so easily. Ten years ago I never would have thought of it. I was way too cool and Rock and Roll to ever consider earning a living at a professional job. Back when I was so insecure and eager to buy my individuality. Like most middle-American kids I lived my days waiting for the next trend to work its way in from one of the coasts and hoped desperately that I would be the first to catch on to it. I grew up in North Louisiana and loathed it. I was certain that when I grew up I would move away and start a bigger and better life somewhere exciting; I equated success and opportunity with leaving the state. Then I went to college at LSU and South Louisiana stole my heart.

South Louisiana became my home. I spent eight years in Baton Rouge getting two bachelors degrees and fell in love with the people and places. I was happy there and would have lived the rest of my days completely satisfied that just being there was as big and better a life as I'd ever need. But, absolutely no one would hire me. I spent my days crafting numerous Cover Letters, Letters of Interest, and Resumes for all manner of entry level jobs; jobs in: writing(as I continue this blog it will become obvious why I did not get a job in this.), building maintenance, advising foreign exchange students, logistics, etc. I applied to anything. I was not picky. All the while I was selling plasma to buy groceries and relying on my roommate letting me slide on my half of the rent until I got a job and could pay him back. Finally, I owed him way too much money and that was a life I no longer felt like I should lead. So here I am nearly two years later, having gone through nearly sixty job rejections and once again living with my parents in North Louisiana. Through all of that I only had one job offer for a position that required me to be on the road at what they tried to cap at 264 days out of the year; which I hardly considered living there and I expected other offers so I turned it down. And in the end it felt like South Louisiana had kicked me to the curb as hard as Edward Norton did that car thief in American History X.

I've become quite bitter about it. It is hard to live down that much rejection and feel any sort of optimism. I go back there occasionally for job interviews that lead nowhere. Those near sixty rejections wore away at my affection for the place until I'm no longer sure I have any feelings of home or loyalty left for it. How do feel at home in a place that throws you out? It's like asking someone to marry a girl that has refused to go out on a date with him over and over again. And those negative feelings have crept into my thoughts on the country at large as well. It is hard to believe I'd have better luck anywhere else. It is starting to feel like I'll have to leave the country when I didn't even want to leave this state. Sure, I could be a cop or school teacher here tomorrow, but those are hardly jobs after my own heart.