Love at first ride...

Bike Complete!


It's a beautiful 56cm bright pink track bike that rides like a dream.

I built up the bike up myself, in my own apartment. I would say that it was 100% Eric-labour, but I had to get the mechanic at John's Bike Shop to cut the steering tube for me since I was unable to acquire the proper tool myself.

First official ride was on the evening of Thur. Aug. 3rd. A highlife was broken over the seat tube for a proper christening just before riding off for an aimless tour of Brooklyn. To make things even better I was joined by a fellow cyclist who also recently built up her own pastel pink fixie. We were a two person pink bike parade.

Bikeless, but not for long.

I haven't ridden a bike in about a week now. Yes I break out in cold sweats at times and my legs often make a pedaling motion in my sleep, but I am doing quite well considering the wreck of my last bike.

Today I acquired 95% of the parts necessary to build up a new bike.

Using the same wheel set, saddle, crank set, bottom bracket, and pedals I needed only a handful of parts.

NYC Bikes track frame size 56cm in hot Pink.
Surly threadless track fork lugged in Grey
Ritchey alloy threadless stem
FSA Orbit XL-II headset
Neon Green pedal Clips
Profile Design Alloy Bull Horn handlebars in Black

I am building it up myself and so far it is about 80% assembled.

estimated time of road-worthiness: August 2nd (just in time for a nice long ride to Coney island on the 3rd!)

Prologue

In the beginning there was a 1972 French road bike called Pinto. The mother and father are unknown as there is no record of any bikes being born in the 70's bearing the name Pinto. Pinto was adopted at a Georgetown bike shop in Washington DC during the spring of 1976 by a man named Larry and ridden lightly for 23 years before being passed on to Eric. Over the next 4 years Pinto was used for conditioning and off season training for distance running.

After moving to Brooklyn, NY in 2003 it was converted to a single speed due to a thief grabbing the rear wheel in Park slope. In the Fall of 2004 Pinto shed all nonessential parts including paint and both wheels as well as it's brakes and embraced a fixed gear wheel set. With it's fancy new wheels and 52:16 gear ratio Pinto was much lighter and began to play in the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn nearly every day.

Determined to ruin Pinto's fun the NYPD decided it would be grand if they were to hit Pinto with one of their heavily outfitted trucks. Their evil plan was successful on July 26th in Brooklyn. Eric was concussed, badly bruised and cut in the face, shoulder and legs, however, Pinto did not fair as well. The top and bottom tubes were buckled about 3 degrees each, the fork was skewed, stem bent, the seat stays bent, saddle cover shredded, and the top tube dented. Surprisingly there was no damage to either wheels, chrank, chain or seat post. Pinto limped the few remaining blocks home and was pronounced officially dead on July 27th at 12:26pm. Eric wept.

RIP 1972 - 2006: