Last year, after moving from a storage locker in Washington County, I moved into an apartment on Grand Avenue. I didn't ride my bike there, or cart my belongings in an xtra-cycle through the streets, or receive sponsorship to live there, or in some way benefit in any way from having a bicycle on my wall that I also rode on occasion. With no job and no income, I had little to rely on and often found myself scrounging for bus fare or vegetables from the Farmers Market, things I might have taken for granted months earlier. In December, after selling parts off of a decommissioned cyclocross bike, I was given a re-built 58 cm Centurion road bike, circa 1980, with new tires. Salvation from the bus lines and a way to get to work as a seasonal Nordic ski instructor with the city of Saint Paul. Bent handlebars, Suntour barcons, bent wheels, bent frame and one purpose. After the epic winter, the massive snowfalls and the spring season that wasn't, I kept riding it until September, when the frame was replaced with a Schwinn steel frame. The parts are all the same and it rides well, but I saved the frame after being told it was a previous wreck, and having ridden it so long without total failure was commendable in and of itself. The barcons lesson was fun, when I lost a camming action nut that keeps tension in the shifter, and rode around town, trying to find parts. Riding on the ice cube quality ruts of Summit avenue, not so much. I now have three frames, dating back to 1987, that each carry the burden of some hard earned lesson, yet no longer carry the burden of my velocentricity.
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