Bike Cycles

When I was a kid I had a bike. Well, I had a few bikes throughout my childhood, really. It seems like every bicycle I owned was either "borrowed" or taken from me by my older brother who had a tendency to either attempt BMX stunts or just flat-out destroy them by various other means. After a number of thrift store and yard sale bikes meeting the same brother-induced fate of broken chains and warped wheels, one I lost in the desert after getting a flat tire and leaving it behind, and one almost brand new bike that I never came back for after moving from Lancaster the last time (which was dumb on my part because I really liked it), I ended up without a bike. After growing up riding and fixing bikes (whether it was because they were old and needed fine tuning or my brother got a hold of them and they needed complete overhauls) I found myself either just driving or walking wherever I needed to go. It didn't faze me really, but the thought of coasting around on two wheels came to mind every so often.

One day a few years ago I was walking around with my brother on his and his wife's property, and I saw something off in some overgrowth; an 80s-era Schwinn Traveler road bike, sprockets rusting, tires rotting, spiderwebs creeping out from under the seat, grass growing between the links of the chain, paint faded from years of sun bleaching and weather, and of course I fell in love with it. I asked my brother if I could take it, he gave the OK, and I ended up taking it and keeping it in the back of my Jeep before I got my apartment. I swapped out the tires and inner tubes, oiled up the moving parts, and have used it ever since.

I intend to put a lot more work into it, especially after riding it a lot more in recent weeks. While the feeling of the warped back wheel wobbling while riding at high speeds adds a degree of excitement, it's a kind of thrill I could do without. Even though the brakes still work, they don't work all that well. There's still a lot of rust on the non-chrome parts, and the paint is still faded or gone, so it isn't a pretty hunk of steel and aluminum to ride around on. Regardless of the work that needs to be done to my 30-something-year-old touring bike, I've been riding it all over for awhile now in an attempt to get in slightly better shape (and to prepare myself for a 5 or 10k foot race race eventually), so I think I'll start putting in a little more work into my retro road pounder.

The thing that surprises me about this bike, though, is the fact that my brother gave it to me. After years of demolishing every one I've ever had, whether it was a mountain bike, BMX bike, racing bike, or some Frankenstein's Monster of spokes and sprockets, he gave me a bike. After so long of having him take them away from me the bicycle cycle had come full circle with him. The fact that I'm using a bike that would otherwise be scrapped is recycling, in a way, which furthers the bicycle recycle cycle.

There's a lot of consonance going on here.

My point is this; my rickety old 1980s Schwinn Traveler has been something I've enjoyed playing around with, and I'm stoked to continue fixing it up more.