oh dear god... *bikegasms*
The weather in eugene is crazy. Two weeks ago the puddles in the alley behind our apartment were frozen inch thick, snow littered the practice fields for a week, and I thought I was never going to be warm. This whole week has been bright and sunny, we're going on day five without rain, and I went outside in short sleeves the other day. Did you see the part about no rain? and sun? recall that it is January... in Oregon. I'm not really complaining, just expressing my justifiable sense of extreme bafflement (maybe I can turn it into a sport...). I have been using the opportunity to get in some good biking, and I've finally been able to get more work done on my bike. I found this really sweet place called the Center for Appropriate Transportation (CAT) in Eugene that rents workspaces by the hour and has tons of tools and used bike parts just waiting to be used. I just mounted a new track stem (and a set of chopped down bullhorns) that makes my bike look like a sleek little masterpiece on two wheels. Now I really really really want to braze on a set of track ends (Step 1: learn to braze...) before getting it powdercoated over springbreak (I'm thinking either sparkly dark red or metallic charcoal gray). On wednesday night I overhauled Andi's $15 bins roadbike, and last night I converted it into a sweet little single-speed. It's kind of weird working on a bike that's not mine... because in a way it is mine now. I worked on it, I poured sweat and effort into it - I'm essentially responsible for its existence in its present state. I gave that bike life, but I don't get to ride it. Not that I'd want to... I love Samuel too much. I like it though. I have tons of fun working on bikes, and consequently I'm becoming a pretty handy bike mechanic. I think I could probably totally disassemble my bike into all of its basic elements and then put it back together in well under an hour. But I'd have to lay it all out and take a picture of it first, because how awesome would that be? Speaking of awesome... I bought a couple bins minibikes for the grand total of $8 a couple weeks ago, and I'm really excited to get to trick them out for zoobombing. I think I'm gonna spend about $100 on the project altogether, not too expensive, but spendy enough that I'll probably wait until spring term to start. I keep hearing about EugeneBomb, and I've checked out their site, but for the life of me I can't figure out where the hell you can ride down big hills in eugene... without having to ride up them first... on a ridiculously small bike. Though, I guess if someone had a pick-up, shuttling would be really easy... interesting.... Note to self, find out more about EugeneBomb.
I don't really have all that much to report really. I just had all that floating around in my insomnia ravaged mind and I really needed to get it out, at least this way no one really has to suffer through it.
Over and out.
