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Tuesday June 16, 2009 at 23:13

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The Storied History of My Bicycle

This will get long. I apologize in advance. Also, Andy is featured in this story so let’s get that link to him out of the way.

It was the spring of ‘07, and I was desperate for a bike. I’d see people biking around and I would be all sad. Where does an internet savvy girl in need of a cheap bike go first? Craigslist, of course. I found some I liked and called up this guy to set up an appointment. Later, Andy and I were talking and realized that we were about to buy bikes from the same guy, the now infamous Steve from Craigslist. Part of the chat that transpired:

Andy: He’s a nut! I picked up my bike in a tie and he made fun of me because he had just been on a 50 mile fun ride! He said: “You’re not reading for bikin’!”

Me: oh, screw him.

Andy: I said “I always wear a tie on my bike rides, sir.

Me: yeah. he wears spandex, i bet

Andy: He had a tiger shirt!

So, I headed into the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood of St. Paul to meet Steve the Bike Guy. The bike I wanted had already been sold, but Steve was an entrepreneur with many other bikes to choose from. I tried this awesome retro lady bike, but as my slogan goes, I was too much lady for a lady bike. So I tried the Raleigh that is pictured. I knew it wasn’t perfect - the brakes were choppy, among other issues that I wasn’t even aware of yet - but I was a girl in need of a bike and dammit, I was going home with one. I wrote him a check for $70.

About Steve: yeah, he was a little weird. He wasn’t wearing a tiger shirt when I saw him, but he definitely had on a giant gold tiger ring and talked of long bike rides. I also mentioned Andy in passing and he said, “That guy? He was riding a bike in a suit!!” and seemed to think this was really silly. Which I found funny, as both Andy and Steve made fun of each other’s fashion sense. Oh, and Steve also said that a lot of girls from Uptown had stopped by looking for bikes, and that I “wasn’t like those Uptown girls.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I took it as a compliment.

So back to the bike. When I showed it to my dad, he noticed that the wheels were bent. He was upset that I got a bad deal, but I was all, whatever! I’ll ride it! And ride it I did. That bike took me to the U and back and helped me finish my Master’s. In fact, I didn’t have any problems with the wheels or the bike itself until Labor Day. I biked to meet Andy for brunch, and on the ride home the whole crank arm fell right off. Right. Off. There I was, sitting by the road at Summit and Lexington waiting for a friend to save me. I texted Andy, lamenting Steve and his crappy bike, and he sent back one of my favorite texts of all time:

Steve is a tiger of non-reliability. He’d ride 50 miles to break your heart!

After that I thought, Screw you Steve! Screw you stupid crappy craigslist bike! It was almost fall, anyway, so the bike went into storage.

The next spring, still mad at Steve and also craigslist, I looked for other replacement bikes at actual shops. Then my dad called and said he found two perfectly good bikes* about to be thrown out in the neighborhood. So I went to my parent’s house instead and took home a nice lady Schwinn. But again, what did I say earlier? Too much lady for a lady bike. Workable at first, it eventually proved to be too small, and so one day I biked over and got the damn Raleigh back.

[*Bike people, you would probably shit your pants over the other bike he found: it’s this super fast vintage Raleigh racing bike with a Campagnolo seat. I’ve tried riding it a few times but it’s too big and fast and basically, I thought I was going to die. I keep trying to get him to sell it to a hipster for millions of dollars, though.]

The Raleigh was glorious. It fit and rode so much better, I felt immediately stronger and faster. Only…the brakes were so incredibly squeaky. As in, I didn’t like to come a complete stop squeaky. Super safe, I know! The wheel problem finally came to a head when I screeched to a stop downtown and got a flat tire. Since it was fall, once again I was like, Screw you, bike! I’VE HAD IT!

But deep down I still had faith. I took a maintenance class at the Sibley Bike Depot in April, and after a few classes of not having anything to fix on my working-perfectly-but-ugly-and-stupid hybrid bike, I finally got smart and brought in Old Red. I switched out the wheels and overhauled a few things, and now it’s in pretty good order. After a couple of years, it doesn’t seem like such a bad deal after all.

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