Day: July 2, 2005

25 things I love about the bike – #25




Bike Frame

Originally uploaded by billjank.

#25 Frames

This is my old Trek 360 frame. Well loved, it had a couple of massive chips in its paint, and I was afraid of it rusting out from under me. So, I stripped and repainted it this spring. It’s shiny now, and ready to be rebuilt and ridden for another 15 years.

But I’m not meaning to be specific about my stuff.

The basic bike frame is an amazing thing. Absent me telling you what kind of bike this was, and who built it, the double triangle shape has been set for well over a century. The stuff that hangs off of it has changed – kind of. Turning the wheel by pulling a chain with a foot crank hasn’t, and likely won’t in our lifetime – it’s too darn efficient. Likewise the double triangle shape – can be made pretty light and pretty strong with almost any material around.

There’s a line in The Princess Bride that goes “There are only so many perfect things in this world…”

The bicycle frame is one of them.

25 Things I Love About the Bike

So I could do yet another Fred gabs about the Tour de France for the next month series of posts. But, that’d largely consist of me sitting on my rump in front of the tee-vee for a large chunk of the prime of the year, and encouraging y’all to do the same. Which kind of strikes me as counter to the whole point of Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Cycle, Cycle, Too.

Which is not to say that I didn’t get my watchin’ in today – we had biscuits to start the day watching the pre-race hype, and bookended it with pizza. AND, I was not disappointed – I (and the boys, but I don’t think the baby had any clue why) was up off the couch cheering when Lance passed Jan – what a potential bookend to one of the great rivalries of sport. And it’s not to say that I’m not going to be doing my bloggin’ from the couch watching after the boys are in bed. But I’m most looking forward to going through the stack of videotapes this winter.

So the aim here for the next month is to give y’all 25 things that really, really get me jazzed about cycling. They’re in no particular order, and I’m kind of flying by the seat of my pants in coming up with them (I am open to suggestions if there’s either something that really fires you up, or if there’s a question that’s been nagging at the back of someone’s mind.) But, much like when I joined the Navy, this seems like a good idea at the time.

Allez.