Co-Opting a Trailer Park Cyclist long reply as a Post

I miss the regular, or irregular, posts on the Trailer Park Cyclist blog, which is now on long term Sabbatical, so when Tim Joe was nice enough to stop by I decided to promote his comments to a post. His eloquent words my photos.

Ryan, I spent two years moping around this damn trailer park with no job other than fixing trailers for chump change. Were it not for the long nights spent shopping and dreaming on the interwebs I may have lost my mind. That and writing my blog not only helped me stay more-or-less sane but gave me a window into another world, poor but always riding and living a true bike-life. 

photo altered to protect identity

As you know I bought a nashbar 29er for a bangaround bike but have yet to get the damn thing running. There are several new bike paths opening up in our area and I may put the nash rambler (just thought that one up) on the back burner and go back to getting little miss dialed in. I was building her specifically for those paths; in another year or so one should be able to pedal all over florida on dedicated bike trails.

NB 29er SS

The reason I mention the nashbar is that Bikes Direct has a Motobecane with a nexus 8 on the same platform as that bike I put together for Cromwell awhile back.

Motobecane city bike

I know what you are thinking, but you said schwinn so motobecane is just as valid. Aluminum frame (which I kinda like) and rim brakes. Perhaps the low price balances the lack of panache? I don't know. 

I am WAY over rehabing old bikes. Little Miss has enough $$$ in her right now to have put me on a Rivendell. Maybe. Almost. I think my Grail Bike is a Waterford, the sad tale of the Schwinn brand drives me crazy.

Waterford Lug

My first bike was a schwinn, of course, as is Little Miss. The bike shop where I purchased my first stingray back in '62 was called Gilles Schwinn Cyclery. At one time in America the word Schwinn was practically a generic term for bicycle, like Kleenex was for facial tissue. It breaks my heart, it does. So many venerable icons in this country/nation of ours have fallen prey to the Junk Man that we have, I think, lost part of our collective soul as a people.

Speaking of broken hearts, I had a heart attack last Friday and spent Labor Day weekend hooked up to all manner of hoses and electrodes and being x-rayed and EKG'd and I don't know how bad it was but they wouldn't let me get on the treadmill to prove I was OK. 

I'm OK now, sort of; I rode fifteen miles today and lived to tell the tale. But they have me taking medication that makes drinking alcohol a really bad idea so that is why I'm typing like a grown up. I'm sober. Good Lord...where does it all end?

15 miler

yer pal, 

tj