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
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!"
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!"
