Tonight after a dose of Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz, I looked over the collapsible furniture at my latest symptom. A Panasonic DX2000 that was a little worse for wear. Not a great bike by any means but from crank to seat post it is a whopping 28" and the stem tube is about 11 1/2". It looks like a normal bike that has been put on the rack and still did not talk. It has a gangly extra foot of vertical-ity. It is larger than the Pursuit left up in Maine, itself a gigantic specimen. A bear could leap through the frame lit on fire and not singe a hair.
It was a quarter to eleven and I said to myself, I have to take it out for real spin. This was earlier than the time of night I actually acquired the bike from a 300 lbs ogre of a man named Juliolindo. I liken his appearance to the Ettercap that can be found in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragon's Fiend Folio page 35. I believe it was his strategy to arrive as late as possible, when wits are befuddled and sleep beckons, his special attack. Juliolindo, who answered all of my hesitations with irrelevant asides such has "I have a K2. a 2 lbs bike." He might still have been riding his K2 as his girth obscured so much posterior space.
I had taken the rear wheel off of the DX2000 for closer inspection and as I pulled the frame from the rack, it decided to lay on it's side. This was unfortunate for my downstairs neighbor has entered into a overt war of cool aggression with me, as a result of unavoidable bumps and bangs that are caused by one as clumsy as I. As expected Andreas appeared like a jack-in-the-box. He is my Albanian-in-a -box, ready to spring at any fallen book, glass or shoe. Though subdued in his expressions, as English is not yet a second language for him, he made clear his intention of reporting me to the sound police so that I might be exiled from his heavens.
Fuck you Andreas, because you do not know what real noise is. So besides a real flavor test, I have extra stress to work off. I am also giving my new bike diapers a dry run. I bought them today in preparation for Saturday's century to Montauk and they feel as if I have passed smooth firm latex into briefs. Outside, I struggle to raise the seat post 2" and climb on. Would you God damn believe it, it is still to low, I need to add another inch, but will do so later, then I immediately notice something...
Bikes are everywhere, as I ride towards the Boulevard of Death, I see three stream by me. I shag right back to Greenpoint Ave and see two more. They are everywhere, Down 43rd Ave towards the Chrysler building there are two more. I decide two things, bikes are like bats tonight, and I need to pick a gear and stick with it. I am big chain ring and second to highest. I then follow my commute route as I continue to see bikes all around me. I head towards the 59th street bridge and head up, and like drips from a faucet, bike after bike, mostly out of darkness come flying by as I huff up the Queens side. All quiet but for the click of coasting wheels and wind in hair, and of course the suppressed sound of car traffic on the bridge, which is in fact glaringly loud.
A hint of the future, a world of bikes, car traffic will be replaced by bike traffic, but for now it is exciting and modern, as they all race each other to the bottom of the bridge, ten of them, twenty of them, one right after the other and I am one of them. As I make it to the top, I am won. The stiffness of the frame, where my wrists, knees, elbows are balancing out nicely up that hill, with no crouching. The components are shit, it has stem shifters, the dérailleur is somewhat bent...this is it, this is the bike I will immediately begin converting to a fixed gear, so I too can belong to the night...
Now all I need is your help.
