Endurance Bike Fixing

Apparently Al Gore was in town Saturday. I’m surprised. It seems like he was just here a few weeks ago.

And you; how was your vacation? I’m glad you’re back. I missed your visits.

Tuesday I received an e-mail (I assume most bike bloggers did) from the makers of Accelerade. “On behalf of Accelerade, I have recently visited minuscar.blogspot.com where you have shown an obvious interest and great understanding of endurance sports.”

Ha. Sorry girlfriend, 100 mile weeks do not a great understanding of or obvious interest in endurance sports make. Endurance bicycle commuting isn’t a sport you’ll make money on anytime soon either.

--

Saturday morning, bright and early roll out to meet Snakebite downtown for the 8am opening of Michelle’s. I needed to leave early as The MinusCar Bike was loaded down with tools and gear. The intent was biscuits and gravy prior to the 8:30 FAB event. Turns out 8am simply marks Michelle’s arrival. Biscuits and gravy is warm at 8:30.

We headed to The Diner where we added our bicycles to the 12 already parked outside the venue!!! Amazing. On the patio we were surprised and delighted to discover the FAB Communication Director/CycleSD blogger half way through his breakfast. At 8:30 we sent him to collect the ride arrivals (which turned out to be The Dad) while we wolfed down 2 + 2 + 2, bacon for me, patties for him. He got the jump on me, but in the end I beat him by half a pancake.

The five of us headed to the Center of Hope. On the way we collected The Sailor after spotting him crossing a bridge with a telltale bike pump extruding from his backpack. We happened upon a biker down, cradled in his SO's lap. He was well attended by other rollers and an ambulance was enroute. I’m just guessing, irregardless it remains true, helmets are good and collarbones heal. We arrived at the destination and were joined by The Kernel, BriMan and LevisGhost.

It turns out the immediate area around hope has no trees, so we opted to perform our services just below the center of hope in the cooler yet very moist basement. CycleSD was unable to wear his glasses because of the humidity.

We spent three hours truing wheels, adjusting brakes, swapping parts. In the end we’d placed 10 Magnas, Huffys and Roadmasters in the done row and delivered 3 bikes to The LBS for some additional work. Two television stations and one (public) radio station visited us. The Center of Hope’s administrator gave three interviews. The FAB Communications Director does a nice job doesn’t he?!



These bikes will go to people who are in need of transportation. Priority goes to people departing prison sentences and needing to get on with employment (not unlike Scooter Libby I suppose). In other words, used by people for their primary means of transportation. These are things that are important to me. This FAB event fit nicely with The MinusCar Project.

Tomorrow: Endurance Parenting

PS: If you roll and you're in the area hit the city council meeting at 7pm Monday night. Snakebite's asking the city to do a better job detouring bike trail disruptions. I've seen his words. Go and see if the snake's got a silver tongue.