Back on the Bike

A while back I was involved in an accident on my bicycle.  It took a while to get my bike back from the police, they held it a while as evidence.  I had heard that it took quite a beating but I really had no idea what kind of shape it was in until the police finally released it to me three weeks after the accident.  Brombeere had gone to pick up a copy of the police report shortly after the accident but they wouldn't let her see the bike.  Pretty secretive.  Anyway, they were finally ready to give it back so we went down and did all the paperwork they wanted and got the bike.  We brought it home and took a few pictures

It really was in better shape than I had imagined.  I had been picturing images of it all mangled and broken but when we finally got it back it didn't look too bad at all.

Yeah, the back tire was all bent and crooked but everything else seemed remarkably intact.  I was encouraged.

While the back end looked pretty bad, the front didn't seem to have much damage at all.

We flipped it over and Himbeere, who had helped me get it, tried to get that back tire off but it was so firmly wedged in there that we gave up.  I was glad Himbeere was there to help; I was still too banged up to be able to do the lifting it took to get it in and out of the car, or even to turn it over to play with the tire.  While I had gotten to where I could be up and around (with help), there was still a lot at that point that I was unable to do.

So it went into the garage and there it stayed for the rest of my bike season and on through the winter.  Then, as I realized bike season was fast approaching, it occurred to me that I'd better see about getting it fixed if I was going to get out as early as the weather allowed.

So I loaded the bike into my car and headed to my favorite bike shop.  I was actually able to do it myself by now, everything had healed up quite nicely and it went pretty well, except for the part where I banged my shin on the bike pedal.  Anyway, I took it in and let them look at it.  Alas, the news was not good.  The frame was bent.  Bike frames don't straighten very well and to fix everything else and leave the frame bent would mean problems, like trouble with the derailleurs and shifting gears, among other things.  So it appeared that my bike was not repairable; I was going to have to get a new one. I had really hoped to be able to fix the old one.  I'd covered a lot of territory with that bike, over 1,700 miles since I started riding five years ago.  And I really like the paint job on this bike; its very unique now days.  Maybe not so much when it was new, but I've never seen another bike like it.  So I had to start the job of finding a new bike.  At the shop I talked to them about it and they gave me some stuff to look at on couple of possibilities they had there in the shop.  Then I went home and began looking on the Internet to see what was out there.

I was looking at it again at the shop and it still looked pretty bad on the back end.

When I bought this bike I had looked around a bit but I hadn't really given much thought to fitting the bike to me and the kind of riding I wanted to do.  I had bought it from a guy at one of the bike shops here in town and we had talked about what I wanted out of the bike but in the end, I later concluded that I should have been a little more selective in picking the bike.  So this time I was.

It reminded me of when I was on my mission. When I went into my first city I just bought the bike, a three-speed, that had been left by the missionary I was replacing, sight unseen.  It turned out to be too small for me so the whole six months I was in that city, using that bike, I was constantly repairing it; it kept breaking.  Toward the end of my time there I used to say I had repaired or replaced everything on that bike except the seat and the bell, which was nearly true.  The next two cities I worked in were bus cities so we use the local bus system for transportation instead of bikes.  But then, when I had eight months left on my mission, I transferred back to another bike city.  Even though the missionary I was replacing wanted to sell me his bike, I turned him down.  And I was glad I did; he went to a bus city and left it so I was able to see it.  It was an antique and would have been too small again.  I'm not sure it was even a multi-speed bike, it was that old.  This time I went to a bike shop and bought a bike that they fit to me.  It worked so very well and I almost never had to do any repairs on it.  I went home from that city and actually looked into what it would cost to ship the bike home.  Unfortunately, it would have been more than just buying another one once I was back.  But I loved that bike.  So, this time when I bought my bike I was more careful.

I ended up getting a Kona Splice, a nice bike.  The guys at the shop fit it to me, it actually took nearly an hour to try it, adjust it, try it again, adjust it again, try it again, adjust it again, on and on until it was finally set.  This model of bike was available in only one color.  I had actually hoped to get something a little brighter than pale blue.  But everything else I wanted was there so that's what I got.

They had it set  up in a rider-rack when I got there so I'd get on and we'd do the seat.  Then we did the handlebars.  We ended up adding a little riser so the handlebars would be a little higher and closer.  The whole frame of this bike was not quite as long as my old bike.  I was looking to give my shoulders a little relief by not having to lean forward quite so far.

After we got the seat and handlebars where I wanted them they transferred over a few items from my old bike; the seat, the rack, and a couple of water bottle holders.  We had to straighten out the water bottle holders a little.  They had gotten bent a bit in the accident.  But they were salvageable so I wanted to keep them.  The rack was a little scuffed up but it didn't appear to be bent so I kept it.  At last it was all done.  My new bike also has more gears than the old one; that was the other thing I had really wanted.  On my old bike, as I rode around the roads and trails, I would frequently "top out" in the gears so I couldn't go any faster except by pedaling faster. In fact, in my highest gear was where I normally would cruise unless I was doing a hill or a rough stretch of trail.

So, once we were done at the shop, I loaded my new toy in the car and brought it home.  And then waited for some good weather.  It had been right about freezing, 32 degrees, the day I picked the bike up.  That's a little colder than I like to ride in.  It had also snowed lightly the day before and the day I picked it up.  Not my kind of bike weather.  So I brought it home and started watching the long range weather forecast, waiting for the day I could try it out on an actual ride.

Days and days came and went without the weather getting good enough to go for a ride.  Then, after having my bike sit in the garage for nearly a month, Brombeere said she wanted to go for a walk. She asked Schwartzbeere to go with her and offered to have me ride my bike along with them.  It was still a little cooler than I prefer but it was one of the warmer days to come along since I got my bike so I decided to to tag along.

So I got my bike out, dug my helmet out (Brombeere was particularly happy to see that), and set to getting ready to go for a short ride.

I've owned this helmet for quite a while but I don't think I've ever put it on before.  When I tried it on it was a little tight so I tried adjusting it.

Pretty soon, Schwartzbeere was there helping me; he had a better angle on it.  Pretty soon he had it to where it was more comfortable and I was all set.

Out the drive-way (carefully checking both ways for any traffic) ...

... and out into the street!  This new bike has 24 gears where I old bike only had 16 so there was some adjustment as I learned how the gear settings corresponded with the feel of the old gears.  But that didn't take a long time.

I stayed with Brombeere and Schwartzbeere for about half a mile.  Then I wanted to go faster, wanted to try it out at higher speeds.  So I told them I'd meet them up the trail another half mile.  When they got there and we talked about where Brombeere planned to go next, I decided we would part ways.  And so we did.  I took off.

My plan, when we parted, was to do a big circle to get back home.  But the route took me passed the entrance to a small park.  So I turned into the park and headed through it, back to the trail we'd just been on when I left them.

In the end, I did about 3.5 miles total on the trip.  That's pretty short as these first rides of the season have gone.  But it was still not bad at all.  It was enough because I was starting to get cold.  And because I had stayed with Brombeere and Schwartzbeere the first little ways my average speed for this ride was pretty low, too.  I still need to raise the seat a little.  And I didn't go far enough to find out if this new bike will be any easier on my shoulders but it felt just fine for the time I was out.  So I did it - I got out on my bike and the season is now, officially underway!  Wahoo!