I'm going to have a second bike!
And, if I do stand by my promise to buy a mountain bike when I get back
to China I'll have a _third_ bike.
(I'm not counting the 3 speed city bike that actually belongs to me or
the road bike that officially belongs to me both of which live in the
US and neither of which have hardly ever been ridden by me)
One of my friends has spent a great many years living someplace that
has a bike hostile condo assosciation regarding such eyesores as bikes
on balconies which has resulted in his bike being in my boyfriend's
basement. For some complicated reason that probably made perfect sense
at the time the wheels remained in the friend's apartment.
This friend is getting married.
Getting married means cleaning up.
And the wheels accidentally wandered from the "ought to keep" pile into
the trash pile and weren't noticed to be gone until after some helpful
person had already taken them to the dump.
The result: He thought about how many years it had been since he'd
ridden the bike and now that it didn't have wheels declared it
"officially trash" for my boyfriend to do "whatever he wanted with it".
I arrived in the US Sunday night and while jetlaggedly not sleeping
felt the need to use my newer and more thorough bike knowledge to
inspect the Schwinn that officially belongs to me (but which I won't be
using this summer since I brought my bike to the US with me) and the
Peugot sans wheels next to it. So pretty. I've seen a lot of steel
bikes in China but most of them are not nice. And both of these are
nice, with the wheeless one looking to be a little newer and a lot
nicer.
The Schwinn frame is more decorative than the Peugot which is merely
welded instead of having tube and socket construction but the parts
that are left (it's only the wheels that are gone) on the Peugot are
much nicer. If the stem shifters and 70s style interrupter brakes on
the Schwinn were replaced by brifters it would help the bike out alot
(it doesn't have a place for downtube shifters to be mounted). The
Peugot already has downtube shifters and normal brakes. It's helped by
the fact that the former owner deliberately made an effort to buy
something nice and spent a chunk of money on it when he got it at a
bike shop some however many years ago (it's been basemented for at
least seven). It's also helped out by the fact that my boyfriend just
gave it to me.
The Schwinn is "officially mine" because I'm the only one around here
who ever rides it. It is not mine. I'm not sure who it actually
belongs to. Someone who isn't living in this part of the US anymore
and who didn't take it with them.
The Peugot is mine. It's not officially mine. It's mine. It's been
given to me. It doesn't have wheels right now and I'd like to change
those toe-clips for some other pedal (probably eggbeaters since that's
what my other bike has), potentially change the saddle, and put on the
foam handlebar tape I like more than ribbon tape but it's mine. Mine.
And there should be no problem at all about fitting it in my bike bag
along with my other bike when I go back to China.
-M