Apparently My Skills Still Need Work.

Round two of NPR's 3 minut fiction contest is over. I entered but didn't place. Here's my entry:

The nurse left work at five o'clock. She stepped out into rain steaming up from the hot asphalt that reminded her of home. The last time she had been there was just like this, walking down Oak street trying to decide between its two coffee shops. The street had been alive with bicycles and prettier girls in light summer dresses waiting for the next trolley to stop down on Carrollton Avenue. As she had walked a conversation drifted over the wall of a private courtyard attached to some expensive new condos. She couldn't quite make it out, but they sounded happy. That was the comfortable existence she had hoped to have, carelessly drinking ice-cold beer with the neighbors on Saturday in the soft humidity of southern shade where you sweat and sweat and feel so healthy. Sundays she would have walked to Audubon Park with some handsome boyfriend and picnicked in the grass on a cheap thrift store bed sheet illustrated with cartoon characters. They'd have laughed together, listened to the radio, and kissed very sentimentally. She'd have cooked for him always and they'd have been in an effortless lazy kind of love.

That life she had wanted now felt thousands of miles away and hundreds of thousands of dollars beyond her reach. Where had it all gone? After college she had tried so desperately to find work there, until there was nothing left. Until, after so many rejections, all her feelings of home and loyalty were worn away by bitterness and disappointment. It certainly didn't feel the same anymore. The realization had been sadly humorous, that she wouldn't be the New Orleans yuppie she'd hoped to end up. Like all of her friends became so easily. She had started to hate them a little. She was still polite, still chatted and joked with them, but she had started to resent them and the complacency that had slowly taken over all of their lives. Their lives became so stable and middle-class. She was the odd one out still struggling to find her place. She wondered if it could ever be the same. If she got a job there now would it all come back? Would all the pain and anger in her heart roll back and give her the feeling of safety she once had? Or would her job security be too fragile, a thin veneer over the certainty that it would all just fall apart again? She sighed. She was sure she couldn't go back home.

Now she was here, stuck in the town she hated most of all. Where she had grown up so miserable. Where she had run out on her parents so defiantly to go to school hours away down south. And where she had returned, having no other choice, back to her parent's house which she loathed even more now for being her last resort. Thinking about her parent's house made her walk slower. She wanted somewhere else to go. Maybe she could go out to dinner to put off going back there. She wanted to walk to some other life, but there was nothing else and there wouldn't be for many more years.

Life isn't always about bicycles.

Sometimes it's about getting your 30 year old motorcycle running again so you can gun-it and pray for death.

corroded old point.

new points.

lubricant.

After all that they just had to be re-gapped and it ran like a champ. Honda engines from the 70's are incredibly long lived. This one has been kicking ass since '78. I got it for free after it had rotted in neglect under a pecan tree for two years losing all its paint (hence the spray painted gas tank). I love it though it burdens me with perpetual need of  maintenance and fear of its decaying old carburetor boots and air box. I worry that soon one of the boots' many cracks will open up wide enough to let air flood in and run it lean to the point of scorching the rings of a cylinder; and it will die in my arms at interstate speed, screaming out in blue oil smoke pain before losing all power in a rapid deceleration death rattle.

 
Maybe I'll get lucky (for once) and that will be a few years off yet.

The Shreveport Triangle (a Bermuda-esque mystery).

I posted a little earlier about finding a Schwinn Collegiate 3 frame in the trash:

and while its having drop bars was certainly curious it did not spark my interest like finding a sister frame to it has. On Wednesday I found another wheel-less Schwinn women's frame in the trash that someone had done a horrible hack-job of painting on.

Which left me wondering why always Schwinns? Why only women's frames? And why always sans wheels? What cultural phenomenon, what bizarre sexual fetish could account for some pervs hoarding the wheels of women's bicycles and discarding the rest of the bike like so much refuse? Or maybe it's a hobby. Maybe someone is constructing a bicycle based multi-wheel monstrosity of transportation and for some reason only favors the wheels of women's bikes, believing them to have some totem power lacking in those wheels belonging to men's frames.

I also found this anomaly of a bottom bracket in the trash:

I cannot rationalize the need to cut a hanger away like this, as it would leave the rest of the frame almost certainly completely useless. I cannot fathom what the person who did this was thinking. I should probably quit rifling through people's trash for bicycle parts before it schews my view of humanity.

Reunited!

I gave to Peugeot back to its rightful owner Sunday night and he seemed happy with the end results.

An almost new Peugeot.

Finally finished the Peugeot up today and it has been a good learning experience. It's nice to have something constructive to do. The test ride was quite fun and I hope to return it to it's rightful owner on Sunday.

The Cane Creek hoods fit the Mafac "Racer" cantilever brakes well enough.

 Though, I did have a problem with one of the old cable guides. One of the two original brass cable guides from the old hoods was broken. I bought two barrel adjusters and filed them down and thread-locked them to fit.

I just hope that the aluminum is strong enough not to break after being filed down so much.

Here are some of the shots of the end product:

The brake cables come up a little high. I cut them to the original length and may shorten them later. This might just be a feature of older bikes  because the cables on my father's vintage Raleigh look to be up at a similar height.

I hope that it will be kept out of the weather now.

New Parts!

I received the parts to finish up on the Peugeot and got back to work on it. I am impressed with the quality of the Simplex derailleurs and would use them on a future bike of my own if I were in need. Here are some pics of the new derailleurs and the old ones they are replacing:

This rear derailleur was $26. It only shifts wide enough for a 5speed freewheel.

I cut the smashed threads off the old axle and put the cones, washers, locknuts and spacer on the new axle. The new axle had to be trimmed 6mm which was easily accomplished with a hacksaw and bastard file. (I should thank Old Bike Blog for verifying my suspicions about its axle size.)

The drive-side cone had a little pitting but still rolls smoothly. 

Cleaned the freewheel up a bit.

filing down a cable end to fit the Peugeot's small friction shifters.

Just need to reassemble it all and cut new cable housings and figure out a creative way to redress the brakes.

I thought that the hoods had rotted away but a period photograph of the bike showed that they originally only covered half the brake. They have some metal running throught them which I suppose is the equivalent of a more modern barrel adjuster so I cannot get rid of them. I am hoping that a new set of Cane Creek non-aero hoods will cover both the brake and the old rotten rubber. 

Have Literacy Will Travel

 Centenary Gold Dome

Friday I biked over to the Centenary Book Bazaar. It didn't open until 4 o'clock but by 2 p.m. a line was already forming.
 

It was a mad house and I didn't find much to read. I try not to buy books new anymore, but I meet hard luck at used book stores here. I apparently share little taste in literature with the people who trade and donate books in Shreveport. I did manage to score some Kafka, Haruki Murakami, Eudora Welty, an AP style guide and this gem from 1973:

It is a very good shop manual for bicycles though I'd never heard of it. I was searching for a copy of Jobst Brandt's The Bicycle Wheel (and have been for months) but I settled for this. It was a bargain at $1. It even has a guide to overhauling internally geared hubs; which I've never been able to read about before and might now be brave enough to try.

Afterward, I rode over to Strawn's to take some pictures and wish I could get some strawberry pie and coffee.

self-portrait

Saturday I went back to the sale. It was raining so I didn't bike there. Thankfully it was not as packed and this time I found a nonfiction book by Steinbeck (It was about traveling with his dog. I've never read his novels, but I highly recommend a short story he wrote about his first car; A Model T Named "It").

I was also able to make it to Strawn's for a BLT, coffee and pie.

Everything Old is New Again; The Art of Staying Young

What do I aspire to really?

 

Is it two-car garage suburban comfort and safety, or something more? Do I always have to look so relentlessly to securing my future, or can I take a weekend off and bring back a little of the old me?

  

I say yes! I say that sometimes you have to just indulge the undying boyish part of your soul that will forever love fun. Sometimes you just have to stake-up a papier-mâché turkey in your best friends front yard to (ersatz) burn in effigy to the real ones you and he used to put in other people's yards almost ten years ago in high school (and try not to even think about him and the rest of them owning homes now, having careers now, and being too old now for these pranks you still play).

But, maybe that's just because I've got nothing better to do...Maybe that's just because I have no faith in this future I am pursuing, whatever it may be.

Someone else's trash is this blog's treasure.

I found this Schwinn Collegiate 3 speed frame in the trash last week. I am hoping to find a cruiser or something in another pile to donate wheels to it. The paint is in pretty good shape considering and I dig its skinny little fork legs. I look forward to making it road worthy for use as a loaner bike for friends or gift for somone I know who had her bike stolen recently.

In the fall the bicycle was always there...

When I graduated from Louisiana State University and struggled for several months trying to stay in Baton Rouge the comfort of my bicycle was still there, helping me to smile through all the disappointment of dead end job interviews and the pathos of riding through all the same old places with a more distant, dejected point of view. And when I was finally forced to give up and move back to Shreveport there was no way I could leave it behind so I packed it up with the rest of my things and moved back up to the north end of the state.

I was raised in Bossier City which is only delineated from Shreveport by the Red River.

Practically speaking the two are a single city; a town that I grew up very unhappy in and given any other choice would never have returned to. In Shreveport I ride as much as I can, though mostly in the evening to avoid the stifling heat.

I commute to the local Starbucks and search in desperation for a job and then I just ride for my sanity. I ride to escape, to try and physically fight off the feelings of failure and depression slowly creeping over me. These rides are where I try to find a new way to see and relate to this town I used to find so alienating,



this town that has grown and grown commercially but not much more welcoming, not much more like a home; though my life in it is now much better on two-wheels.



I'm hoping that bicycling shall be the salvation of our relationship, this town's and mine.

I am acquainted with the many whys of others who choose to ride, such as: the high and mighty pedaling to save the earth, the über-competitive training to outshine their friends and neighbors in regional races, and the young and fashionable riding as an accessory to compliment their particular lifestyle and/or subculture. But, none of these describes or encompasses why I choose to.

I am not pedaling out of environmental concerns; I always aspire to do better, but environmental altruism is not my primary motivation for biking. I was beaten too consistently in competitive sports as a child to ever consider racing. And I've never been hip enough or lived anywhere at the forefront of anything to be able to partake in a fashion trend.

I ride because it is seriously fun. I'm talking a mad, psychotically addicting form of transportation. I bicycled in my youth of course (riding BMX and mountain bikes), but didn't really fall in love with it until college. There I happened upon a beautiful but weathered and neglected yellow cruiser in Goodwill.

 I added the uncomfortable banana seat later.

I fixed it up, rode it to classes and my favorite coffee shop, and started going to Critical Mass; which was always one of the best nights of my many years there. I loved this cruiser dearly and thanks to the flat land built by hundreds of thousands of years of Mississippi silt I was able to take it on relatively long rides. I would ride it in solitude and en masse. I would ride it to lonely nights on the levee of the Mississippi, to a clearer head and a better perspective on my life; or to this same levee with a friend to eat cuttlefish jerky and drink 32 oz. beers in my salad days; to the farmer's market Saturday mornings, drinking fresh fruit smoothies in Arsenal Park with the nutria rats of the lake beside the Governor's Mansion. Or I'd put it in the bed of my truck and drive it to New Orleans so I could ride through Uptown, The Quarter, and The Marigny: to the coffee shops on Oak street, Freret Cafe, and the parks and campuses off Magazine street; to the roller-derby San Fermin, Cafe Du Monde, and the French Market, to various restaurants and the bike charity Plan-B. Over the whole rough ride of that city's beautiful but haggard, pot-holed and poorly patched streets. On a few of these trips I was lucky enough to have a pretty girl on the handlebars too. I knew superficial, intellectual things about riding: that it was healthy for me, better than driving a car, etc. But, what has married me to bicycling most of all is the enormous deeply personal feeling of fun I've had while riding.

Saturday Morning.

A self portrait racing down Creswell Avenue.

My dad and I got up at 7 to try and beat the heat on a ride to Shreveport's Farmer's Market.

My dad on the vintage Raleigh I bought him for his birthday/father's day.

The ride was a lot of fun. The Farmer's Market turned out to be not that bad either. It was bigger than I expected though not so well attended. 

 

  

 

 I got a peach pie and a $3 smoothie made in a vintage Vita-mixer 3600 or 4000. The mixer was probably over 30 years old; my dad recognized what it was. Both of these food items were excellent. And there was a lot more to try but I'm a man of limited means. All in all it was a pretty good reminder that life here isn't always so murderous. The rest of the day I worked on the Peugeot, which is slowly winning me over.

 

Damaged axle.

Dirtiest freewheel ever soiled by man?

Rim before.

 Rim after some steel wool and machine oil.

 

 Just a few more hours and new parts...