Bicycle, bicycle

As the song from Queen says, "I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike." "Fat Bottom Girls" is the logical follow up to "Bicycle" but we don't wish to discuss THAT.

A couple of years ago I purchased a beach cruiser bicycle from the local Tar-Zhay for riding around the infield at California Speedway NASCAR races. This was back when we were hardcore NASCAR fans. Them days are over but I still kept the bike. Unfortunately, my Schwinn Jaguar 7 speed beach cruiser never really worked right. Something was funky with the derailer so I parked my bike in the garage and waited for someone (TheManTheMyth) to fix it.

Thing 1 has a bad habit of cannibalizing any bike left unattended so over the last few years, we've had about 5 bicycles that were all missing parts but not one bike that was in working condition. The big mystery is what he does with all those parts he swipes. I know he's not selling them because then I wouldn't be hearing, "I need some money" all the time. It's a mystery.

Anyhoo, for the last year I've had a hankering to go for a bike ride but without a working bike, that's a little on the difficult side. So I've been nagging TheManTheMyth to please fix my bike. And since he's been off work for the last few weeks, he's had time to do all those things that need attention. Like fix my bike along with his own as well, both of which were missing several important parts, such as wheels, gear shifts and air in the tires.

So after dragging the two carcasses out of the motorcycle garage, he went to work and voila! Not one but TWO working bicycles.

Mine (I don't ride girly bikes):

If you look closely, you can see cobwebs in the spokes and around the rusted springs of the seat. There used to be a basket but that disappeared along with many of the original parts.

His:


The good news is, I now have a working bicycle. The bad news is, since I nagged for so long to have a working bicycle, I am now obligated to actually RIDE said bicycle.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?