Bikes - Joy or Affliction?
 

I've recently started wondering about the joy I experience in 'things bicycle'. Hours pass blissfully working on things and fixing them. A few months back a student asked me what made me happy and I answered that working on my bikes made me truly happy, that while I was doing it time disappeared and I was at ease with being. What is this fascination?

What is your fascination?

A week or so ago I bought a 1948 Sturmey Archer FW hub because it had a threaded driver and I thought I needed one for my girlfriend's 1955 Hetchins, which was made for an SA hub/ Cyclo derailleur combination. The hub was rusty and cheap. I got the driver out of the hub, together with the cog, and saw on the internet that to remove the cog from the driver you needed a bar in a vice. You slip the pronged end of the driver over the bar and then use a chain whip to undo the cog.

[IMG]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5241/...a71a1b064f.jpg
IMG_5126 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

I went and bought a Shimano tool for undoing lock-nuts and cogs and then realised that my vice, being a suction type, wasn't up to it. Try to undo the cog with that and it would just come unstuck from my desk. What was I to do?

Taking it to my LBS was an option but where's the fun in that? I decided to take the tool and driver out with me in my pocket, just in case I came across some street-furniture that I could use. And I did. I'd actually given up and was heading for the garage I rent (to give the Americans in this forum, by far the majority, an idea of the privations we non-US based C&V members endure, I pay around $635 a month here in Tokyo for a 1-car lock-up garage, just big enough for our 3 motorcycles and 7 of our bicycles) when I noticed a barrier I must have passed a thousand times.

[IMG]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5162/...51830d263b.jpg
IMG_5128 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

I got off my bike to have a closer look - perfect!

[IMG]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5047/...befe0f9764.jpg
IMG_5129 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5004/...c7ddf186fc.jpg
IMG_5130 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

Standing there, a 6'2" foreigner in a land of the short, doing what must have seemed, to the uninitiated, like 'something unnatural' to their surroundings, and grunting all the while, gave me cause for thought, but it wasn't long before the 62 years of grime in the threads gave way and off it come. Can anyone imagine the elation I felt? I half expected a cheering crowd.

[IMG]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5129/...9a2a3f0f55.jpg
IMG_5131 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5210/...938b44d9c6.jpg
IMG_5132 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

Whenever I have time on my hands my mind turns immediately to my bicycles and I quickly do a mental sort-through of the things I want to do, measured against the time I have to spare. Just now I re-shimmed the stem on my Chesini Pista as it's been creaking when pulling on the handlebars on hills due to the shims I made before being slightly too thin. I've dialed in the right length for the stem on my Hetchins Nulli Secundus and have to remove the adjustable Ambrosio and fit a stem of the right length. I have a couple of Fiamme sprint rims that I want to build into wheels (bought a truing stand before Xmas as I've decided to learn how to build wheels). I'm off to the garage now to swap the Chesini for my Peugeot PX60, which I want to ride for a few days to check if anything needs doing before I use it for a bit of touring later this month. This is a full-time hobby! If only I could devote myself to my business like this...

Does this resonate with many people here?

I love working on bikes. If you don't , watch the "Real Housewives of...".

What's the question?

I enjoy wrenching on so many levels, however, I MUST ride more this coming season. It will be hard to rip me away from the workstand but I simply have to.

It resonates like striking a steel bridge support with a sledgehammer...which is to say; yeah. Quite a bit. Despite my travelling lifestyle that has landed me in Haiti, Baghdad, and Kabul through the last 8 years, I have maintained an ever-present fascination with things bicycle. Working on bike parts themselves is as fun as riding the things to me, if you throw in a fine Belgian ale probably better than riding. The satisfaction of fixing the very thing that moves you from place to place is sublime, something that with today's electronics-infested automobiles is no longer very practical for most of us. I love the feel of bearing grease and placing those shiny cleaned bearings back into their races for the first time, the twang of a just-right tensioned spoke. Spinning the properly adjusted cranks before attaching the chain and feeling the silky smooth rotation carried on by the weight of the pedals, it's all magical.

I can't imagine anything I'd rather do when I finally get to hang up the fed work in about a decade than fix and maybe make bikes. There's just an altruistic quality to it, that you're working on something that will make someone happy, it really makes me think it's a low paid but higher calling. The ultimate; to take tubes of raw metal and shape them into a personal conveyance capable of ferrying one across thousands of miles safely and enjoyably, that would really be the top for me. Hopefully my retirement will suffice to allow me to devote my time to such pursuits, and feel as if I have contributed a net positive. Bikes are truly wonderful creations, and the meticulous dissasembly and repair of them is certainly an activity of great worth, despite the value modern society places on it.

I was thinking along similar lines as yours recently when I detail-cleaned my road bike in our tiny Arlingon, VA apartment kitchen, with my tools and workstand deployed. Despite having packed up my entire shop for probably 4 years or more, it's still such a pleasure to wrench on my bike. I think we're in good company here on C&V, with lots of fellow tinkerers who would prefer rebuilding their bottom bracket to find a mysterious creak than go to a football game. The shiny wink and silky feel of freshly polished aluminum, the smell of tubie cement, the knowledge of properly setting the toe in on a brakeset, these things are like our catechisms as we strive towards the embodiment of cycle knowledge. Our benign addiction is unparalleled in the myriad ways it can expressed. Trolling C&V and stumbling across the religeous fervor associated with the proper way to clean old pitted chrome one could be excused for thinking us a mad, crazed group of acolytes, worshipping at the twin altars of vintage Campy and Shimano.

I guess it's one of the activities I would prefer to define me, as opposed to my work or some of my other pursuits. Even in Afghanistan, ferrying diplomats through the steets of Kabul, when I'd see an Afghan through the armored glass on an ancient rod-brake 3 speed I would wonder; where does he get that thing serviced? Would I be able to improve the shifting on that thing for him? I think one of the most evil things perpetrated in the wars has been the use of bikes stuffed with HE in the tubes as anti personnel weapons.

To me they are kind of, if not holy items, maybe just guileless ones, like a friendly dog waiting to see his owner. Bikes need our care to survive the dry, dust, wet and heat of the world. Bringing a forgotten and downtrodden one back into the world of the living is an incredible joy. Yeah, I get your gist. I think most of us do.

[IMG]http://farm1.static.flickr.com/225/5...04e8b2657a.jpg[/IMG]

Hi Dawes-Man -

I'm going to vote: Affliction. Then again, maybe it's only an affliction for the afflicted. I know a lot of people that own bikes and are perfectly happy leaving it in the garage save for that once or twice a year when they pump up the tires and hose everything down with WD-40.

I got back in to cycling at the end of 2009. Up to that point, I'd only had a mountain bike that was hanging around. Now, I have five bikes (three are in rotation, the mountain bike gets used occasionally, and one is on deck to become a fixed gear). Today, I spent the afternoon on cleaning and maintenance - partial tear down of the Dawes for cleaning and such and overhauled the front hub and added a proper chain tensioner on the single speed gas pipe bike. Loved every minute of it. Not sure if it was because I was doing something new (I am teaching myself how to wrench) or the fact that I was successful at doing it.

Further, there is the rush of getting bike stuff (tools and accessories from LBS or REI).

Finally, I tend to Preach The Bike Fantastic to non-cyclists that will listen. Haven't converted anyone yet, but it's a long road.

Maybe, it would be more accurate to call it and addiction :)


[As an aside, in deference to your handle I have two Dawes Galaxy's - I'm going to guess 1970 and 1972; the 72 is going to be the FG]

Resonates with me! I love working on them. It's relaxing and I like to see the final product running smoothly down the road, especially when you can see neglected/gunked up parts of the bike look new and shiny. :)

Nice take, nice photos. I'm with you, more power to the bike. It begins to solve quit a lot of problems in society today if you take the time to think about it. Keep posting, keep pushing forward; little changes are better than none.:thumb:

I love working on bike, also - most of the time. However, I do it for a living, these days.

The company, I used to work for, got itself into lots of trouble, filed for bankruptcy and I lost half of my pension. So, it was either get another job, at this late stage in life, or become randyjawa - vintage bicycle/webmaster guy of the North:-)

Now, with my bicycle business and website activities, I manage to keep my head above water and the Bingo hall paid off - most of the time. However...

Once a hobby becomes a job, some of the pleasure goes out of the activity. I cannot honestly say, that I like doing all of the work, I do on bikes. Cleaning up an entry level offering, knowing it will just sell is not a lot of fun. Packing up anything, is a pain, in the nether regions. Answering one email, after another, is fun but can be a pain when some people ask incredibly stupid questions. Paying Ebay's and PayPal's absurd prices is more than a pain...

But, when I take time, just for myself (I give myself Friday's off most of the time), I turn to one of my own projects. And I escape.

Gotta few hours to spend redoing MY "TEN SPEEDS" and then it's into the workshop, to have a go at removing the paint on my first acquisition of 2011 - a late sixties five speed Torpado "Luxe", that is in great shape, except for the Italian, quick release paint, applied over the all chrome plated, and polished, frame set...
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=186440 http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=186441

I've come to realize that when I finish the projects I have parts and plans for, I won't be getting any more bikes for myself unless I sell one first. Flipping bikes in this town is a fool's errand but I've got four granddaughters and a son-in-law that need bikes so that should keep me busy for a good while. And the occasional coworker that needs a bike.

For me, whether ridin' or wrenchn', bicycles give me moments away from the challenges of my calling. This is the peaceful part. To temporarily put on hold that "Mr. Smith" is dying from cancer, or "Mrs. Jones" is in anguish because her son is in Afghanistan, or I have to finish writing my sermon.

The affliction part comes into play more in the winter when riding can be such a challenge. It is then that I spend too much time on ebay, CL, etc., searching for the next project. There's hardly anything productive in spending time searching out ways to spend money when you really don't need to.

Somehow I need to come to the place when I let the bikes and the work they entail, simply find me, instead of vice-versa.

I've joined a great group of guys to ride with this summer.

...and I have a family full of riders as well.

This will help me stay away from being the bike mechanic this year.

Joy - 1

Affliction - 0