Biking?

My first bike I got when I was 5. The chain kept falling off. I couldn't bike 20 feet without the damn chain coming off. That was also my first bike mechanic story. Too bad neither me or my mom knew enough to straighten the chainring to fix it.
My mom and me moved to Clifton, NJ when I was 9. All the kids in school had those Schwinn Krate bikes that are collectors items today. 5 speeds, big phallic shifter in the middle... It was the closest thing a 9 year old got to a motorcycle.

But this wasn't my bike. I was ghetto and my mom bought me a single-speed Iverson. It looked alot like this:

Even when you're young, you know the difference.
My mom worked all day in the city, she would take the bus and get home around 7pm. Instead of doing my homework, I

would either ride my bike or work on it in the garage. Sometimes until 10pm, which was late when you're in 5th grade.
i
When I was 6, my mom bought a 3-speed Pony folding bike. She had a child seat installed, rode me home from the bike shop, and then never rode it again. We took it to NJ when we moved, where it gathered dust in the garage. It looked alot like this:


Now, my bike had no speeds. So the first thing I tried doing was pretty ambitious for a 10 year old. I tried to swap the rear wheel (her bike had an internal 3-speed hub) and the shifter, because that way my mom's bike would LOOK the same, and since she never rode it since the day she bought

it I figured she'd never know the difference anyway.
The one thing I didn't count on was the hub being too wide to fit my bike. I also didn't realize if I took the wheel I needed to take the rear brake too, because mine was a coaster brake.
So I gave up and tried to put it back together the way it was, but my mom found out and screamed a blue streak at me. I still didn't understand because she never once used it. "That's not the point!" she yelled. My bike I got back together, but hers was a lost cause.

So I was left with my single-speed bike, and I used to ride it everywhere. I rode to the end of Valley Road, which was about 4 miles. (I was 10.) I rode it down Grove Street. I even once rode it on the side of route 46 (an almost-highway) to get to a Dairy Queen.
Looking back, that was pretty hardcore of me.
So we only lasted 3 years in NJ and moved back to NYC.
I had some no-name 5 speed yellow bike that I customized with orange fenders. I loved that bike.

It was also the first bike of mine that got stolen. Naive stupidity, I left it leaning unattended on the side of my building.
Man was I crushed. I was 12 I think.
I cried like a baby, I went to the police station and cried to them, and was shocked in disbelief when their jaded indifference slowly dawned on me.
There was nothing they could do, and nothing they were going to do.

And yet it was one of many bikes that got stolen in the course of my lifetime.

There was the 10-speed I locked up outside Bloomingdales with my friend Doug, (we went to play videogames on the ColecoVision we couldn't afford) and when we came out, my bike was gone and his was still there, the cheap chain swinging from the handlebars.

There was a blue musclebike that I leaned against a wall in Central Park, to get through a crowd and look down and stare at the man who fell over the side and plunged 20 feet to his death, blood leaking from his cracked skull, face-up, his eyes wide open.
I had never seen a dead man before, and as I was deep in contemplation about life and death and trying to picture how he must have fell backwards, I looked and my bike was gone. 'Cursed by the dead man' I thought.

Why do I love biking? Because when you are too young to drive, it's the only means you have to get around. Biking is freedom. Biking is exhilarating. Biking is empowering.

Fixing bikes is art to me. It's being able to ride something you made, the sense of accomplishment.
Whenever I build a bike, I have a really hard time selling it. It's somehow a piece of me. I would rather give them to friends where I can know of their appreciation and be proud when I hear them brag to their friends, "My friend Ross built this bike for me!"

My next-door neighbor

...Comes back from his weeklong family trip.
Before he left, he was gushing about a girl he was dating for the past three weeks. 'She's the one,' he kept telling me, in a dozen different alliterations. 'Oh, she's a businesswoman, she's starting her own restaurant, etc etc talking her up to me. He even shows me a photo. Busty Brazilian Brunette, she was definitely a looker.
'I've waited 15 years to meet her, and I just know she's the one.' he says with animated enthusiasm.

After three weeks, you know how much is wrong with that statement.
He is 67 years old. She was 23.

Of course I can't do anything but warn him, 'I'm happy for you but...'
Aww christ, you know, I couldn't even tell him. What could I possibly say.

Well, he comes back deflated, tells me it's over, his family talked him out of it.
The week before, he neglected to divulge one crucial detail:
She was a stripper.
Now not to be judgmental, being a stripper is not a dealbreaker, but it was combined with the rest of the story he had told me about her ruined the math.

He was bummed but lucky. He got out before he got burned too bad.

I wasn't so lucky in my day.

the classics

I was never a book reader. Back in high school I never read anything besides People magazine, and maybe Readers Digest that my dad gave me a subscription to as a Christmas present. (Thanks, Dad.)
I never expressed one iota of interest in Readers Digest either.

On top of that, having no discipline, I was awful at doing book reports. In prep school we had six weeks to do them from the time they were assigned to us.
So in 9th grade, Russian Roulette-style, I ended up with To Kill A Mockingbird.
Right off the bat I judged it by the title and immediately took a disliking to it. Part of the fact I was 'forced' to read it also made me not want to read it. You know how that is?
I looked at most Kurt Vonnegut books that way too. Everyone around me always had a dog-eared copy of some Vonnegut book for one reason or another. And me with my anti-establishment mentality, in a way I saw my classmates as mindless sheep being programmed by society by all reading the same narrow list of authors, the same books.
So just the fact of being assigned to me, To Kill A Mockingbird became the 'programmed' reading I was trying to avoid. Yeah I was so smart, I could see through their evil subliminal plan of trying to teach me some lesson that I already thought I knew.
And yet like an albatross it still somehow hung over my shoulder.

Six weeks came and went, and I never did that book report. I never even opened the book. My teacher threatened me with failure of English class if I didn't hand it in, so I said I was working on it to placate her. But I never did. I graduated without doing it, so I felt absolved.

But in the back of my mind, every so often I would think about that book.

It's funny because when I was that young my mind still wasn't emotionally developed at all. I took everything at face value for years and I couldn't see anyone's ulterior motives or read body language or read between the lines. I wouldn't have understood that book if I had read it anyway.

It took me years to realize it was mostly because I was such a loner and my parents were never around to raise me or teach me the subtleties of people's words or actions. My mom never taught me anything about people, she kinda stayed back and let me develop my own opinions. It's good in one sense because your mind doesn't get poisoned with prejudice, but at the same time it's like being thrown in the ocean with just a rowboat and a pair of oars, not knowing how to fish or how to navigate. That was my level of social skills.

I remember once in my early 20s when I was hanging out with my close friend Lisa, I met a girl that I took a liking to and was talking to for a while, and after we parted ways and I felt pretty good about myself and my chances with her, Lisa turned and said to me,
"She doesn't like you."
"What do you mean?" I just couldn't understand it. I thought I totally hit it off with this girl. I considered in my 20 year old mind that maybe Lisa was jealous, but then we never had that kind of relationship.
"She just doesn't like you, couldn't you tell?"
"Really?" I said, slightly crestfallen at this point. Again, I didn't see it.
Lisa started to explain to me all the signals this girl was putting out that I was totally not picking up on. At all.
It was also at that moment Lisa became the Mystical Decoder Of All Things I Didn't Understand.
Only later in life does one completely comprehend the weight and gravity of such a person in one's life.
Consider yourself truly blessed if you ever have a friend willing to be patient enough to teach you stuff you have no clue about, in a way that isn't condescending and insulting to your (perceived) intelligence. My infantile mind until that point just could not see the nuances of things.
She taught me to read between the lines.

So anyway, fast forward to the present, over 30 years later. Consider that for the past 16 years I have been umbilically tethered to the internet. I have a shelf of books I never touch. Some Vonnegut too. "One day I'll read them," I halfheartedly promise to myself when I'm cleaning and forced to confront whether to keep them or donate them to the local Salvation Army.
Usually, while I'm surfing the internet, Leslie reads voraciously next to me. Harry Potter series. Vampires. Some fluffy stuff sometimes. But always reading. I tell her she should do book reviews because of her unbiased and razor-sharp critiques.

But then one day it hits her to read The Classics, meaning basically, 'all that stuff from school.'
And the stigma that hung over me about that time, and those books and what they represented has faded and replaced with a genuine curiosity.

Yeah, OK, I honestly feel like an idiot writing it like that, I can see how you're reading it, like with an, "Are you kidding, what took you so long?" Like I never knew what velvet or silk felt like.

But yeah. It's a great book. I admit it. I missed out, OK?
Watching the movie always helps me visualize things too.
It was also completely fascinating when Leslie found out and told me Dill was Truman Capote.
That just adds a whole 'nother layer of interesting. Need to download Breakfast At Tiffanys and In Cold Blood, and of course read those too.
In the movie, they downplayed him but in the book you can tell she's really fond of Dill, waiting the entire year for him to come back. I did think it was really cute and affectionate in the movie when there's a shot of Dill passed out leaning on the Reverend as everyone else was riveted to the trial.
I also loved reading about how everyone who made the movie stayed close for the rest of their lives. Gregory Peck was very close with the girl who played Scout, as well as the actor who played the accused man Tom Robinson, Brock Peters.

Anyway, there's something more valuable to me in 'borrowed' books. I appreciate them more knowing I have to give them back at some point. (god, why is my head so fucked up sometimes?)
But it's really fun to share the experiences with Leslie. Kinda like biking together.

Next up is Catch-22. I think we're gonna need the movie first.

insight

So explaining on my life a little:

Business and just working in general, not one of my strengths. I have either quit or been fired from dozens of jobs in my lifetime. (usually the latter though.) I don't stay at jobs long if the work environment doesn't suit me.
I don't put much weight into jobs, they don't mean that much to me. The people I choose in my life come above all else.
You can find a job anywhere. But people like Leslie don't come along even once in a lifetime.

I didn't realize until the internet came along, when people started revealing their deep feelings online, that most people are lonely and bored. Alot more than I ever was.

First off, I'm a certified loner. I really don't need the presence of other people, I never get bored. THe reason mostly was because being a latchkey kid, never having my parents around, you learn to not depend on anyone else for things. If something breaks, you learn how to fix it. If you're bored you find something to do.

I remember when I was 10 years old living in New Jersey, instead of doing homework, I'd be in the garage for hours fixing up my bicycle.

My dad was never meant to be a parent.
My dad left me with a bad taste in my mouth about alot of things. He would put his work above everything else, including family. Jobs he would be neurotically punctual to, but to see his kids, not so much.
His actions spoke louder than any words. So my parental role model was set.
Actually, my anti-role model.

I vow never to have kids. I know I'd be an awful parent. I have no one positive to base it on.
My mom tried the best she could but she was never around, she had to earn the money. I don't hold that against her, but it caused alot of friction growing up.

So that's why I put my one personal relationship above everything else in my life.

That's why I could never work retail, why I refuse to give up my weekends.

Minstrel Cycle

... I told a mandolin-playing clown unicyclist he should do women's parties once a month, and call it that.

Anyway, so I bought another bike last week, a matching Trek Drift for Leslie's other one.
That will make 26.

Somehow I got past some unseen unknown obstacle and I'm finally finishing some project bikes. One is a Schwinn I bought from Walmart a year and a half ago, another is an Electra I'm trying to make as light as possible but its somehow just not.

I have to learn so much. Aluminum welding and then hardening (you have to harden aluminum after you weld it or it's as soft as overcooked pasta, but I have no idea how... chemical? Heat? Usually YouTube has answers.)
There are things I need to make myself because as huge as the internet is, I can't find big handlebars. Well, I can but just in steel, I want them in aluminum of course. So I need to make them.
And I need to learn to make comfy banana seats. In leather. A couple of years ago I had two made at a shoe place and they were beautiful but they were kinda hard, I was trying to explain to them to make it soft but they didn't. Leslie didn't like it.
You want things done right, you gotta do it yourself I guess.

I know what you're thinking: "You have what, 26 bikes, why don't you open a bike shop already?"

I've thought about it.
Alot.

There's this bike shop near Leslie's house, we pass it every weekend going to the post office. Sometimes I go in and talk to the guy, he's this old crabby man who has been there since probably WWII. I'm trying to feel him out, and the more I talk to him the more I totally disagree with him about his whole philosophy. He runs the shop alone.

For one thing, he is never open on Sundays. And sometimes even Saturdays. In the summer no less.
I ask him, 'why don't you have some kid run the shop if you don't want to be here?'
"Naaaah I'm not gonna do that," he waves his arm dismissively in that patented old-man wind-up that old complaining men do.

If you want to survive in the bicycle business, you NEED to be open on weekends. That's like saying you don't feel like commuting to the ski shop because it's snowing out.

It's why I don't want to get into the bike business myself. I like my weekends. I have always hated working retail. Leslie's been at her job for eight years, and she's not going anywhere. Nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday.
And I'm a firm believer of being a hands-on owner if that's what I'm going to do. I wouldn't trust my business to anyone else either.

So I'm riding home on Thursday and I'm 'racing' this other biker riding an expensive Italian Pinarello and dressed in biking tights and gear. His bike must weigh 15 lbs.
I'm riding my customized Schwinn cruiser and carrying 50 lbs of gear, meaning all of my tools and work-related stuff, and my bike lock. And I'm wearing khakis rolled up to my knees to keep the grease off. This is how I get around, biking to clients in the city.

Why do I bike? It's the only exercise I get, and it frees me from the stress of the subway: The crowds, the non-existent trains at rush hour, the smell, the feeling of being treated like cattle. Also alot of our clients are always 'luxury' buildings several blocks from the train, and the walk from the station alone always takes longer than the actual train ride.

I also build my bikes, something I derive alot of happiness from. I love finding and buying parts, I love the satisfaction of knowing I ride something I built.

And sometimes I tend to get 'competitive' in my mind, especially on the 59th street bridge, this 3/4 mile uphill climb that tests your endurance and strength and strategy against other bikers.

So back to Thursday, after he's crushed me up the bridge and I've finally caught up to him going downhill, me and Pinarello are waiting at a light.

"Nice day, huh?" he says.
"Yeah, finally" I reply. It's been cold all week and its a sunny balmy 50 or so.
"Hey, I bumped into you last week," he says.
I never talk to anyone. This is NYC, bikers don't even say hi to each other. So he obviously must be mistaken.
He surprised me when he said, "Yeah, you yelled 'I've got 50 lbs on my back!' at me when I passed you."

He was right. In a moment of defeat I did indeed. I had to laugh.

I'm not sure if I should be a little more social with other bikers. None of them say Hi, nor do I ever say anything to them. It's a snotty-biker thing I guess.