I have the good fortune of being wealthier than I ever imagined.
In bicycles.
Granted, some of that is inherited wealth:
But work is tacky, and the truly rich know that this form of enrichment is the most satisfying.
Anyway, given my privileged position, the last thing I need is another bicycle–though how can I resist the allure of this vintage Hardrock, forwarded to me by a reader named Alex?
I know what you’re thinking:
“Why the hell would you want that?”
Because it belonged to none other than David Byrne, that’s why!
OK, well, not exactly, though it was a prop in a David Byrne music video:
I did check the video in order to verify the bike’s provenance, and the song itself sounds like someone doing a somewhat over-the-top parody of David Byrne, while the theme of the video appears to be “Night Of The Living Park Slope Dead:”
Granted, it was hard for me to look directly at the video for more than a few seconds at a time, but I did not see the Hardrock in question. However, I did see someone riding what appears to be a vintage Cannondale road bike while wearing some sort of VR face thingy:
In any case, even if the Hardrock did appear in the video, $750 sounds like an awful lot of money for it. I mean this is no Rosie O’Donnell’s Budnitz:
By the way, “Rosie O’Donnell’s Budnitz” happens to be the name of the Brooklyn-based tambourine-and-dance collective who are opening for Byrne on his tour this summer.
Uh, hello, AI? That’s your cue…:
That’s not bad.
Of course, I really shouldn’t buy this Hardrock when I already have one that I no longer need:
That’s the bike Paul from Classic Cycle sent to me for my elder son, and that both my elder son and my younger son have now outgrown. So if you’re interested in a 24-inch Hardrock just let me know and we can figure something out–or, if there are no takers, I’ll list it for sale for way too much money and claim that it was used by David Byrne’s stand-in for the “Everybody Laughs” video shoot.
Speaking of used bikes, I spent some time on the Craigslist Special this past weekend:
I also pulled and regreased the bottom bracket to address a slight ticking, and un-wrapped and re-wrapped the bars to make some lever position adjustments:
This is the same model of bar that was on the Lemond, and it’s brilliantly designed so that you can have either the tops or the drops at the angle that suits you, but never both:
While I certainly prefer a rounder bar with a more traditional shape I can live with this one, having pledged not to spend any money on this bicycle–a pledge I take so seriously that I didn’t even replace the ancient, fraying bar tape, let alone the worn hoods that resemble those socks at the bottom of your drawer you should really just throw away already:
I also don’t want to replace any of that stuff because once I do I’ll then be compelled to move onto other parts of the bike and address stuff like the missing headset sweatband:
And the missing brake barrel adjuster o-ring:
What was Campagnolo’s obsession with easily torn or lost rubber things, anyway?
But yes, as long as the bicycle is running smoothly I must resist the urge to replace stuff for largely aesthetic reasons and just let it be funky…at least until some other more compelling use for that drivetrain presents itself and I plunder it for its components. I mean why fuss with that old thing when I have this?
It’s just as fast as the Craigslist Bike on the roads, while also being perfectly capable of fleeing into the woods:
Though I can’t help wondering how it would feel with that Campagnolo drivetrain…