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Old 12-09-11, 05:37 AM
  #10  
RomTom
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Eugene, Oregon
Posts: 2

Bikes: Antique cruisers

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Thanks folks, for the good words about my old Bikebus. Yes, we were quite a fixture of the Northwest for nearly twenty years. We were on the road 365 days a year. Basically we had a sort of route we followed which took us up through Washington State and down along the coast to the bottom of Oregon, visiting mainly the Indian Reservations and small towns that had no bikeshops. Towns with no bikeshops end up having children riding unsafe bikes with no brakes and gears that don't work, and rusty chains, etc. We also accepted old defunct bikes that families didn't need anymore. We rebuilt all the bearings and cables, and replaced tires and tubes that needed replacing, and whatever else needed to be redone. Any bike anyone bought from us functioned pretty much like new, and could be depended on for problem-free riding for years. So, when we returned to the same town or village the next time, we met with satisfied people who knew us as trustworthy. We gave away some bikes to low income people. We also repaired bikes for people too poor to pay. Which surprised many a person. Because the world isn't like that usually. I used to like to say that nobody ever left with an unfixed bike because they were too poor to pay. We also did a lot of trading. I remember once we got a large pot of boiled crawdads for repairing a bike. Other times we got home-baked bread or pies. Also other bikes. I especially liked antiques that I could rebuild and put up above on my rack on top as showpieces. This behemoth of a bus never got a traffic ticket. In Eugene Oregon, each Christmas, the police and Marines used to gather up used bicycles to give away on Christmas. Today, they don't do that anymore. No more used bikes. They only give away new bikes. But back in those days it was old rusty bikes that people donated. Bikes missing pedals. Bikes with broken wobbly whees. Bikes with rusty kinked up chains. Bikes with rusted frozen brakes and gears. Flat tires. There was no way to fix them. They gave them away just the way they came in. Broken down and unridable. And it made those Police and Marines VERY SAD to do that. They really hurt. But there was no alternative. On the years when I happened to be in or near Eugene around Christmas I would go there and park my bus there where they all were gathered, and I would spend all day long, working FAST AS i COULD, and I would fix up every single bike they had gathered there, so that every bike, not only was rideable, but every gear and brake worked, and no fat tires, and no rims missing spokes or needing truing, and every bearing with grease. Typically I would repair 30 or 40 bikes that day. And when I left at the end of that day, every policeman there would shake my hand. That made this old hippie feel darn good. I would still do it on Christmas if they gave away donated bikes like that. We got off the highways ten years ago or so. I had to deal with cancer, radiation therapy, chemotherapy. Actually, the political climate was no longer conducive of our sort of business. I don't know about the parts of the country where each of you live, but, like there used to be a big store here where they sold day old bread and stuff for real low prices, which poor people really depended upon. Nobody actually comes out and says what was behind it, but economic powers reasoned that if a store like that was open letting people have access to inexpensive day-old bread, then they wouldn't be buying full-priced loaves of bread in the stores. So, under the tables, they arranged things politically so that that day old bread store had to disappear and never come back. They did the same thing to everything like that. Meanwhile giving all kinds of fake reasons that sufficed to gullible people. They set up rules and regulations in just such a way so that such businesses could not exist anymore. For instance they made it very difficult for me to insure my bikebus. And insurance was mandatory. And the tickets were huge for anyone who tried to slide by. So they made it impossible for us to get affordable insurance and we couldn't drive anywhere without insurance. Oh there were other things too. But they couldn't fool me. I saw what they were really doing, and who and what was behind it. Please visit my bikebus website: http://www.trholme.com/bicyclebus/ -------- That other website mentioned on this page -- www.goddessheart.com --- is NOT really pornographic images. That is just the bogus narrow-minded unartistic thinking of our society. We are senior citizens, my wife and I. But I met her when we were young, on the biggest nude beach in North America -- Wreck Beach on the campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver BC Canada, and we fell in love and have been together ever since. Nudist cultures are not automatically pornographic cultures. Whole families go there, of every age. It's not sexual. It's freedom. A place where people may be free. You don't find people with bad manners there saying or doing rude things. Mostly you find artists and poets. -- http://www.goddessheart.com/digitalisis/ That is art. -- In addition to repairing and rebuilding bicycles, I have always been an oil painter, sculptor, and photographer - and a poet. Goddessheart.com has existed for fifteen years or so --- my photos and my poetry. I only photographed friends of myself and my wife. People sometimes traveled many miles to have me photograph them. Basically it is the same thing as my Bicyclebus. There are some people who will never understand it. They will only see it their way. The old bikebus is a useless pile of junk and I am some kind of slaggard. There is no way to change the way someone like that looks at the world. Goddessheart photography is the same thing. If you have UNDERSTANDING you have understanding. If you don't, you don't. All the best to all of you. --- (I have over 30 websites. See them all at: www.trholme.com ) Thanks, RomTom
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