Confessions of an Urban Suburbanite

   So I am in the middle of my build of Big Red, everything is done except the back wheel. I am going to the Denver Bicycle Collective to learn how to redish my wheel and then spin on a track cog. They have a community bike repair shop and library of bikes to check out. You learn how to do things on your own and they have all the tools. right up my alley, it should be cool. Big Red was going to be riding on nice new rims but I decided just to do it on the cheap. I stripped Big Red (BR) down to just a frame and fork and removed every bit of grease. Nail polisher works well if you don’t have anything else on hand. Just don’t let it touch the paint. I took the ball bearings out of another bike and rebuilt the headset and did the same with the bottom bracket.BR now has shimano cranks from another bike and some big drop bars. I think it will work out nice. Pictures should be coming soon. Deathbike almost got me yesterday but didn’t let her take me down. Again I almost wrecked at a stand still. I have not taken my own advice and practiced track stands. Deathbike rides like a dream and I am getting good at standing up and pedaling and not thinking I am going to coast. Pretty soon I will rename Deathbike to Blue Velvet or The Bluebird after I have learned to ride with out close calls.

Deathbike 5000 is cousin to Big Red, my Panasonic thrift store bike that I brought back to life with pliers and a crescent wrench. Big Red got me interested in taking old bikes and turning them into something ride-able. Big Red and Death bike also share their home with Green Machine, my wife’s 1960’s thrift store Hawthorne 3 speed. Deathbike is a mid 70’s Peugeot, a low end bike that was retrieved from mom’s basement. Deathbike sat for while and I used Big Red to get back and forth to school. Deathbike’s chain was rusted, the 5 speed cog was rusted solid and the tires were rotting off the rims. I  bought a bike tool kit for 40 bucks and with the help of a bike home repair book form the library and Sheldon brown’s website I went to work. First I stripped the whole bike, everything had to come apart. I was curious to see what was inside the headset and bottom bracket and to figure out how it worked. Turned out to be rather simple except for the drive-side crank which had to be re-threaded at my LBS to remove. Cleaned everything with lacquer thinner and then regreased and put it back together. I ordered some new wheels, got new tires,pedals and a bmx chain and it was ready to go.. well almost. Some things that Learned the hard way.. Old bikes like mine are spaced at 135mm in the rear most of the time and although steel frames bend spacing it out saves stripped axle bolts. 2nd , don’t push the pin all the way out of the chain, just enough to unhook it. 3rd, Goddamn stuck pedals cause you more grief than an entire bike build gone bad. Just take it to the LBS and they can do it with a better and larger pedal wrench. Big Red has now been dismantled and almost all cleaned, she will be my back up bike or end up as the wife’s fixie if she wants one. I want to learn how to re-dish a wheel and just spin on a track cog so I can take a thrift store bike and change it over to a fix with no real investment. Green Machine’s wheels are still wheeble wobbly after my self truing lesson went bad so it will be interesting how my "re-dish" goes. It did take a lot of patience to learn how to get things just right but on a fixed there is not much that can go wrong. The last phase of Deathbike will be her new rims and cog, taking the front fork down to the LBS to be bent straight, I have Bigreds fork on it now, and flipping and cutting my bars so I can have a nice upright position to see traffic. Bigred’s future looks bright, more to come on that build and pictures of Deathbike’s final stage coming soon.

Ahoy , Well I am back to fixed gear and my learning curve was rather high until I started riding with clips. Yes it is easier to stop with them and pedal faster but I still have trouble getting in and out. I almost dumped my bike today when I went to stop and my bag swung up and over my shoulder and forced me off balance. I barley got my right foot out and still laid my bike down–gently but still. I am waiting for some new wheels so that I can practice skidding and feel more in control of my bike. Right now I have a cheapo hub and lock ring, it does the job, but I am not depending on it when I have to slow down quickly, quickly as in there is a car door that just swung open in front of me or a car that cuts me off. I have been calling my bike Death Bike 5000, because when I forget that I am riding a fixed and I decide I want to stand up and coast I am reminded very quickly that no , I am on Death Bike 5000 and Death Bike 5000 does not coast. For those who have had this experience you may understand my bike’s name. I am also going to practice track stands so that I don’t have to keep getting in and out of my pedals EVERY time I stop. This experience I am having with Death Bike is fun , it is like learning to ride a bike all over again.

So for the last three weeks I have been building and fucking with my bike. I built a fixed gear bike at first but after my knee starting killing me I changed it to a single-speed. That was working great until today when my back and only brake busted and forced me to stop by skidding my foot on the ground. I hate having brakes I am changing it back to a fixed gear once my knee is working. Summer school was hell but I am glad I got it over with. Now it is getting colder and all the spandex queens ( wannabe racers and real bike racers head to toe in spandex going about 30mph double abreast) are coming out on the bike path and trying to run everybody over.  This weekend was the Great American Beer Festival. I was going go but it was 50 bucks. Jen and I ( the wife) had are own private tasting session of PBR at sputnik instead. Good choice. The urban suburban is alive and well. I missed Dolly Parton at the convention center but did catch the pixies at Red Rocks with my friends Jill and Henry. I did catch some outbreak like monkey virus in San Francisco while visiting my brother. That was awesome. I spent the next two days staring out at a fire escape and watching TV. To back up with that story.. So I was a little late to a dinner my bothers girlfriend cooked, my brother tried to disown me, I forget my friend Sarah was sick and we start sharing a bottle of beer as we stumble down the Castro from my brothers house, end up with asshole bartender in the mission who is so fucking " alternative" and cool that it makes realize every click is the same and being a skater or a punk is just another fucking extension of wanting to fit in with some group. I should know as an old skater, its all relative  If you want to be so cool and different start wearing a fucking wet suit if you really need to satisfy your need to be so different and unique . I feel comfortable saying this because the bartender probably  collects troll dolls  and should have slit her wrists and called in sick  so my friend and I didn’t have to go through teenage angst from a 30 year old woman. . Anyway that was SF in one night and I don’t remember flexing in the kitchen and thats how I caught my monkey virus. Had the food the next day in stage one of outbreak, it was really good. I think they still hate me a little for missing dinner. 

This is it. My first blog. Today is July 11th.

    Confessions of an Urban Suburbanite is my life in the Urban Burbs. That is, I don’t live in downtown Denver but I don’t live out in the middle of no where. I am about 4 miles from downtown. I live on the old route of the trolley system that zigzagged through the expanding city of Denver as more homes where built south of capital hill in the early teens. There are bars in all directions, restaurants, 7-11’s, a bike shop, dog supply store, and a coffee shop all with in about a 1 to 5 minute walk. It is like living with the urban convenience of closeness to everything but being able to have the suburban backyard. I am just a bike ride away from crack heads in one direction and in the other Washington park. It is the best of both worlds. I love Denver. If I want to go out to the bars I can and if I want sanctuary from the drink I can go to a clean, syringe free park and ride my bike. I moved into this neighborhoods so my dogs could have a backyard, it was close to the bike path to school, and I don’t need a car. I hate driving now. Denver is turning me into a tree hugger faster than you can say recycle. So that’s my first blog. So now you know where I am set up at so that my adventures into Capital Hill, over to Broadway, and to the park make a little more sense. I will be traveling by bike until the winter when I become train and bus bound. That’s it for today. Summer school calls.