Thursday Report

I'm off work for the next couple weeks. Maddie is in school this week. I spent my second day in a row tooling around town. And my second day in a row going to visit Hairy Gary. I picked up some cranks from him yesterday and it turns out he had finished straightening some Atlantis forks that I had left there about a year ago. AND... he is nearly done with a rack that is also of the same vintage. It's a big hunk of machined aluminum. Weird. But I'm game for whatever he cooks up.

He said he'd spend a couple days finishing my rack. On the ride back from his house I figured I should just bring my 720 there with my new Kogswell fork and have him fix it all up with the new rack. So, I stripped most the crud off the 720 last night, loaded it up on the 520, and rode it out there today with my new forks.

Gary has this pink beauty hanging in his living room.

It's a woman's super light sport tourer; about 54 cm. It's steel and it's about 3.5 lbs. With fork. Freaky light. It would fit Liza nicely. He said he'd sell it for $2200, which is a great price if that's your deal. It's a neat paint job; flowery/butterfliey but mellow; not crazy.

The ride to Gary's is sucky, but I kind of like it. It's sucky in that you pretty much have to go out Broadway in the Helena/Freya area, which just isn't pleasant. But I like it out there because there's always lots of cool industrial type stuff to look at and some rough roads and a bit of dirt. There are also little homes tucked away in their too. It is a neighborhood. My route always includes the shortcut through Playfair, which -- by the way -- is on the short list as a place for a new prison. Nice. Just what that neighborhood needs. Lame.

On the way back, I saw this bike hanging on some one's porch:

Dig the chian ring and the crazy offset on the fork.

This would be a damn fun bike to ride. It's a 3-speed; it's nice and big. Not sure what size tires those are. 597's? Man, I'd love to ride that sucker. Check out the clearance. This would be a flippin sweet city bike for tooling around.

As I was on this guy's lawn taking pictures, he pulled up and told me that he got it at a garage sale and that he doesn't ride it. And that it looks a lot better when it's dark. Indeed.