![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
More than I hoped to spend, but this is awfully sweet! http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/bik/1878496109.html
Gotta think. I have to run to taiko in a few anyway.
Gotta think. I have to run to taiko in a few anyway.
Aug. 3rd, 2010
To the enablers on my f-list
Aug. 3rd, 2010 09:22 pmCalled the guy when I came home from taiko and asked if I could stop by tomorrow after work. He told me someone was coming to see the bike at 3, but I could come by tonight if I wanted, gave me his address and it turns out he's just the other side of the estuary. Still slimy from taiko, I hit an ATM and drove over to this little industrial cul-de-sac off 880.
I find the apartment-cum-warehouse unit with the marlin over the door as instructed. Young guy with a pony tail and a sort of young-Eric Stoltz vibe is wheeling another bike out the marlin door and waives as I pull up. It's for someone else who's coming to look at it and he goes and gets the red bike for me. Prettier even than the photo on the ad. Clean as can be, not a mark on it except a little wear on the white plastic pedals. He says it needs a white wicker basket on the handle bars. I say, "And playing cards between the spokes." New tires, new cables.
The seat is at almost the perfect height for me, maybe an inch lower would be perfect. OK, flip flops were a dumb idea, and I really haven't been on a bike in decades, but after a wobbly push off, I'm cruising down the block towards the water easy as can be. I make a loop at the end of the street before I hit gravel, then deliberately aim her at a stretch of pavement that looks like a lava field: bumpy, but bike and I handle it just fine. I try a hard stop with the hand brakes. Brakes work fine and so do my reflexes.
I ask Young-Eric-Stoltz if I can pick it up tomorrow because I have a crapload of gear in the back of the truck. He's getting ready to go off to a trade show - he also refurbishes guitars, as it turns out. I do some quick shuffling and re-arranging of said crap-load and we manage to lay the bike on top of it. I toss my cloak over it (no sense in advertising what's in the back of my truck overnight), lock the camper shell and pay the man.
Tomorrow's mission, get a good lock and a helmet. I own a bike.
I find the apartment-cum-warehouse unit with the marlin over the door as instructed. Young guy with a pony tail and a sort of young-Eric Stoltz vibe is wheeling another bike out the marlin door and waives as I pull up. It's for someone else who's coming to look at it and he goes and gets the red bike for me. Prettier even than the photo on the ad. Clean as can be, not a mark on it except a little wear on the white plastic pedals. He says it needs a white wicker basket on the handle bars. I say, "And playing cards between the spokes." New tires, new cables.
The seat is at almost the perfect height for me, maybe an inch lower would be perfect. OK, flip flops were a dumb idea, and I really haven't been on a bike in decades, but after a wobbly push off, I'm cruising down the block towards the water easy as can be. I make a loop at the end of the street before I hit gravel, then deliberately aim her at a stretch of pavement that looks like a lava field: bumpy, but bike and I handle it just fine. I try a hard stop with the hand brakes. Brakes work fine and so do my reflexes.
I ask Young-Eric-Stoltz if I can pick it up tomorrow because I have a crapload of gear in the back of the truck. He's getting ready to go off to a trade show - he also refurbishes guitars, as it turns out. I do some quick shuffling and re-arranging of said crap-load and we manage to lay the bike on top of it. I toss my cloak over it (no sense in advertising what's in the back of my truck overnight), lock the camper shell and pay the man.
Tomorrow's mission, get a good lock and a helmet. I own a bike.