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Thursday, February 07, 2008
for real. its my winter bike, here is the story. its a brown Schwinn varsity, i bought it for $30.00 bucks out of some dudes yard (yeah yeah i know $30.00 is a lot for a Schwinn but i felt like the guy really needed the cash) i turned it into the scariest fixed gear ever! it was super sketchy,im talking 27 inch wheels,53 18 gearing,suicide hub and platform pedals. last year i decide that i would spend a few bucks and make it safe. i bought a bottom bracket conversion kit so i could use a regular bottom bracket and put the wheels off my iro on it because i sold the iro. i used some old mtb cranks and bottom bracket and the chain line was really really far off...but it worked.once i hit a bump while in traffic and because my chain was loose and my chain line was so far off my chain came off and wrapped around the spokes stopping the wheel dead! i survived it but feel i used one of my nine lives. next its the one i hit the lady on,and the other day the rear tire split going around a corner and i almost went face first into the pavement. so i locked to the parking meter out front and let it get covered with salt and snow to show it who's boss. today i decide that i wanted to have fenders again and my good bike is getting covered in crap. i bought a new $15 tire and went to put it on. the tube that was in there had a hole near the stem so i used a back up tube,i put it in, pumped it up to 80psi and was making sure it was seated right...all close to it and... BAM! the tube blew so loud, its been three hours and my ears are still ringing! im pretty sure the people who live downstairs think one of us are dead because it sound just like a gun shot. i gave up,its sitting in the corner silently taunting me. i used to call it The Noodle because it was so soft under you but now im thinking of calling it Christine.
please tell me other people have cursed bikes and im not just crazy.
5 comments:
ahh... the notorious exploding tube to the face. classic!
i have never had a cursed bike, so to speak, but i have had a cursed tire. it blew off the rim without warning, three separate times, though i never had a problem with the matching one on the front. (i'm still running it, actually.) i sold it to this crazy hippie guy who came in one day looking for a cheap used tire. i warned him about its history, but he didn't seem worried.
well... now that i think about it, i haven't seen him since.
hmm...
you prolly just shouldn't have tried to show it who was boss. (but, hey... Christine is catchy. nice SK reference. a Fury out for human blood!) get back in that saddle, or it wins.
"so i locked to the parking meter out front and let it get covered with salt and snow to show it who's boss."
Nice! It is necessary to show no corner with these gnarly monstrosities. But seriously, I wouldn't fuck with a Schwinn Varsity, they've got cast-iron hearts. And I would never even attempt to challenge the solemn dominance of a brown one!
You should take the Christine thing to the next level, and paint her fire-apple red. Or, consider a name change, call her Carrie, and just dump her wheels and all into a vat of solvent and montana spray paint for a couple of hours.
Good luck!
oh, no, you're not crazy! i have a little Bianchi that is haunted... twice last year i was sitting watching the teevee, looked over at the bike, and BAM, the tube blew so hard the neighbors came over to see was I dead. twice! takes a while for the ears to get better but they do. I think. i wasn't that close to mine when it happened.
p.s. not only are you not crazy, you're a hellofa writer. and you do gottta show those old bikes who's boss. i'm getting a 1930 something hawthorne skip-chain next week and can't wait to see what kind of friends we become. think i will name it "Hank".
I know what you mean about the gunshot sound. I had a tube explode whilst riding, fortunately I was stationary having just descended a steep hill. I was stopped at a set of lights when "BAM" the rear blew out, sending people diving for cover and grannies to the ER!
Mine blew because a tiny hole appeared in the sidewall of the el cheapo tyre I'd fitted, and the tube had bulged out and was rubbing the chainstay.
Maybe it's time to admit defeat with Christine and dismantle her. There comes a time with any bike that you start throwing good money after bad.
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