I haven’t been riding my bike much this summer. There hasn’t been a great deal of need or inspiration, plus it’s so hot, you guys!
Still, it’s bike time, and I recently found this unfinished post from way back. I’m honestly not sure when I started it; the troubles to which it refers happened as far back as 2006, and the crash that inspired me to write it can’t have been later than spring 2008.
It’s also worth mentioning nearly all of these accidents happened on the bike I had before Clangours. In hindsight I don’t know why my second bike got named for the accidents since it’s a longer-standing issue than that. I even recently said, in all seriousness, “Getting hit by a car isn’t so bad after the first three or four times.”
Maybe the issue is me?
This is a story about my bicycle. It was built for me by Danny, the man behind the infamous karaoke show.
Danny bought a pretty sweet bike, an early ’80s Raleigh Grand Prix from the time just after Raleigh was bought by Huffy, before the quality dropped off. It was too small for me, but I fell in love with it. I told him to find me one if he had the chance.
Three weeks later, he called and told me he had it in my size. You’d be surprised what Danny’s capable of.
In the first six rides I took with it, I had three accidents. Danny thus christened it “Trois Clangours”. Jerk.