bike porn

uncovet.com

This is the Bobbin Birdie in sky blue. I hate this colour. Or I thought I hated this colour. Two days ago I definitely hated this colour. This bicycle is on sale at Curbside on Bloor for 4 hundred dollars, regular 650. Also comes in flamingo pink, and pale yellow. I happen to have seen this "pale yellow" model when I was in the store. It must be hard for a yellow bicycle to look pale.

Just the 21 inch frame left now at CS, in sky blue. It has a three speed hub, and you can clearly see that it has a chain guard and fenders, and the more I see this bike the more I want it. The internal gears are low maintenance and actually designed to withstand weather and to stay outside in the winter, says the Curbside website.

I was going to tell you the whole grueling story of my search for a new bike after my old Miele got stolen, and how I came upon my 1973 Raleigh cruiser with scratched off serial number. I like to think the number was scratched off decades ago, and I no longer own someone else's missing bike.

But those are subjects for another story. Today I’m going to show you this bike. I’m just going to show it to you. Here it is. I was going to post the picture from the website, but I found this little beauty on Pinterest instead. Doesn't the hideous blue look stunning against that earthy background?

For now I'm going to stick with my beaten up Raleigh. Before I get something nice I want to regain a little faith in the universe. Not that that's going to reduce the chances of theft, but it will reduce the incidences of fretting. I'm getting a lot of flack from my friends and family about how and where I park my bike. At CS they talked me into spending 130 dollars on a lock. "Nobody I know who bought this lock has ever had their bike stolen," said two different salesmen at Curbside. At least they're on the same page with each other. I've done research. No lock is immune to an angle grinder! Youtube says, it takes about 10 seconds to cut an Abus lock held down in a table vice clamp. I wonder if the gentlemen at CS are aware that you can now purchase a fairly powerful, battery-operated angle grinder -- for less than the price of that lock! Let's hope they are right about most thieves being drug addicts, whose priorities don't include thinking so far ahead as investing in a vice clamp and an always fully charged, inconspicuously portable angle grinder, just in case of those really desperate moments of need.



Now! There's a woman who lives on the island who rides around the city on a gorgeous black Batavus that looks just like an English comfort bike in the style of the classic Hero. With its galvanized steel frame and internal 5-speed hub it must weigh about as much as my apartment....

love from afar

Opus Zermatt

The other day I saw her. On her bike, a beautiful Opus Zermatt, one of many bikes I’ve been admiring for weeks. This Opus has elegant shapes and lines, brown handles and seat, with everything you'd want in a city bike, except a chain guard, and it is the colour of a spring meadow in the morning mist.

There she swept by on her two wheels, prettier than I could have imagined her. A medieval princess, in earth tones, skirt, boots, blouse, her black hair waving in the breeze, the fronts of  it pinned into a narrow curly tail over the luscious shiny back of it.

I like my 1973 Raleigh Cruiser, in a dusty, not really, blue, but a colour that blends into everything, like jeans, ...or the sea. But the bike was bought in a hurry, and it's not ideal. While it's well-built and really solid - nothing on it wiggles - it is a little whispy, the frame itself. When I'm laden down with heavy groceries, it seems to actually quiver and bend. The tires are quite narrow. I don't know how it will fare in the snow, and it's hard to find knobbies in that size. Though I'm getting conflicting advice on what's best to ride in snow, "You can grip a lot more pavement in slush with these hybrid slicks!", I have three winters under my belt, and I wish I could go with what's tried and true. Finally, after much searching and all this adapting - I'm on my fourth handlebar - I still find I'm leaning too far forward, putting a touch too much weight on my wrists.

So, my lusty eye does wander. I notice her Opus every time I pass by it. The colour always makes me gaze, and the sweeping writing on it. Lately I've been a little worried about it, because she locks it by the luggage rack, and it would be very easy to steal it. Again I walked by it this morning noticing, hm, it would be very easy to steal it.... 

Walking by again this afternoon I saw a strange gap between the leather handle grip on the right and the gear shift. As I realized that the grip must have been moved, I saw the other one was missing altogether, and once again decided that there is no point in owning anything really nice!

...in fact if you look really closely at the photograph you will see what recently happened to the bike parked beside it.