a little bit about my favorite bike

If you know me, you know that I love my bikes. After a brief period of owning five bikes despite living in a normal-sized apartment, I've finally pared down to what feels like the essentials. My wife and I got rid of our car and replaced it with a Rad Power Bikes Radrunner 2, for use as the family van and grocery runner. It's got a seat on the back so we can ride together, which has led to some really romantic rides near the water at sunset. We have a Retrospec Beaumont 7-speed for my wife to ride when she's feeling the itch, and of course, I've still got my trusty 1988 Schwinn Prelude.

Several years ago while still working at the barbershop, a good friend of mine and I got talking about cycling and how much I missed riding around our town since I had lost a bike a few years prior. A realisation hit him, and as he was bit just as bad by the bug as myself, he was at that moment in time reducing his own stock of bicycles. A couple days later, he returned with a small, lightweight road bike. After a cool eighty bucks, it was mine to take for a spin!

Now look, I know its not the featherweight carbon Bianchi of a racer's dreams, but I feel absolutely in love with this bike. Smooth riding on that steel frame and fork, twelve speeds, and a saddle that has no business being comfortable! Its an ugly thing-- the saddle, that is-- but my god is my ass comfortable there. Its gotten me superstitious about switching to any other saddle, even though I'm certain a nice Brooks saddle would be a gorgeous addition.

But then again... here's the thing; I like that its somewhat busted looking. Without a seat cover, my saddle looks every bit it's sad, yellowed foam. But something I find fun is that with a pair of scissors and some spare squares from the fabric store, I can update the look in minutes! The fabric wears out reasonably fast, but who cares? I can just slap another square on there and keep riding. This also means that when I decide that I want my saddle to be covered in little cats for awhile, I can do that. For now, I have convinced myself to just keep a little muted blue cover until the mood strikes for something more dramatic.

If you stick around a bit, you'll probably notice my Schwinn Prelude a lot, as I ride it nearly every day, as many kilometers as it will take me.