My Bikes (Part I)

I'm kind of a private person.  Having a blog like this is a little out of character for me, but I guess I'm getting used to it.  Actually, it's not really such a threat to my privacy needs because no one actually reads this blog anyway.  However, I really stepped out of my comfort zone during this past week when I set up a Facebook account for myself.  I know.  Everyone else has been on Facebook for the past five years already.  I've always been a late bloomer. 

One thing that I have been hesitant to do on this blog is post photos of my bikes or discuss anything gear-related.  I know that other people with bike blogs like to do those kinds of things.  Again, being a man of privacy, I have carefully avoided that level of self-exposure.  But since I went ahead and did the unthinkable by joining Facebook, I figured that I might as well bear it all here.  Also, I firmly believe that anyone can get out there and commute by bike.  It's not that hard, and you don't need fancy gear to do it.  And what better way to demonstrate that fact than by showing you photos of my positively mediocre bikes.  So here's the first in a series of three posts about my bikes (although the second and third posts may never happen). 

I have three bikes.  I know what you're thinking.  Mr. Fancy Pants Lawyer has lots of disposal income to spend on toys.  Well, let me tell you, all of my disposable income goes towards buying disposable diapers, and whatever is left over goes to the student loan mafia.  So don't get any funny ideas.  Actually, two of my bikes I found for cheap on Craigslist.  The third one I bought new at a bike shop.  Here's one of my Craigslist beauties:

This is my winter and bad weather bike.  It's a 1988 Stumpjupmer.  Since most of my major life decisions are dictated by nostalgia and weak sentimentalism, this late '80s masterpiece of mass-produced steel has a special place in my heart.  I went to college in Northern California from 1988 to 1992.  Back then, I tried desperately for about a year or so to become a hippie.  Turned out, I wasn't very good at it.  All the Berkeley hippies that I tried to emulate, however, had super-cool Specialized mountain bikes.  Mostly Rockhoppers.  A couple of trustafarians rode Stumpjumpers, but those were pricey.  These were Specialized's mid- to upper-level bikes. 

So during my first winter vacation back in L.A., I headed over to I. Martin Bicycles and bought a bike.  Actually, my dad bought it for me.  I guess I didn't make such a strong pitch to dear ol' dad because I wound up with a Hardrock - Specialized's entry-level machine.  None of my hip Berkeley buddies rode a Hardrock.  I promptly removed most of the incriminating decals off the bike, leaving only that sweet Specialized "S" intact on the headtube.  Maybe no one would notice.

Over the next few years, I rode the living snot out of that bike, even after I gave up on the idea of being a hippie.  I commuted to school and various jobs on it.  I rode it offroad on beautiful trails in the East Bay, Santa Cruz and So Cal.  It did everything I wanted.  Then, I settled down in L.A. and got married.  I had a job that required a lot of driving around, and the couple of times I tried to commute on L.A.'s westside scared me half to death, so I gave the bike - which wasn't functioning very well anymore - to a Jewish charity thrift shop on Fairfax and went on with my life. 

A year later, I was in law school in St. Louis and, nearly two thousand miles away from L.A.'s traffic, I started to miss my old Hardrock.  I wound up buying some ungainly twisted hunk of aluminum and malfunctioning shock absorbers - a mountain bike I was told - off some guy used.  I rode it through law school, but I could never get that magical feeling of vintage Specialized out of my blood.  When I moved to Milwaukee, I dumped the bike and found this old Stumpjumper on Craigslist. 

I had to put a few dollars into it to make it rideable.  It's a good commuter.  There are tons of old mountain bikes out there that can be had for not too much cash and can be made into commuter bikes.  In the winter, this bike gets Nokian studded tires for the ice and snow.  The rest of the year, I put skinnier city tires on it.  Since there is plenty of clearance for big tires on this bike, fenders are easy to install.  I have SKS 50 fenders on this one. 

The best part of this story is that I finally got the bike that would have made me the coolest rich-boy Deadhead back in Berkeley in 1988.  So what if it has 20 years worth of rust on it.  I like it like that.