Getting close to another year's end.

This is the deal, right now, my deal, at least.

Unfortunately, the Stella met an untimely demise a couple years ago, just after I'd gotten it right. I hit a parking lot wheel stop one night riding home in the dark and bent the frame. She awaits some sort of art project.


I replaced her with a curbside find, a Peugeot UO8

From My Pictures

My Picturesthat someone abandoned on 41st Street. Just the frame was there, along with a Raleigh and a Gitane and a Schwinn Mountain Bike. Anyway, I built up the Peugeot with the parts from the Stella and continued on fixedly.

In February, Laurie and I visited Indianapolis for NAHBS, guaranteed to incite gear lust in any red-blooded bicycler. The only catch is that there is so much great stuff, I could hardly fixate on any one bike. A 20 inch wheeled cargo bike from Hunter Cycles came close but I lacked $1500 to buy it so I bought a wool cycling cap from them.

A few weeks later, my friends at Acme Bicycle Company called me in and told me that it was time I rode an Acme. They had a handmade track frame in my size. I told Christi that I wanted to be able to use a rack like one of those from CETMA. We talked for awhile and I thought about it.

2 weeks later, Christi called me in to see something. There was a built-up track bike with a custom front rack. She had me ride it around the block. I took it up the alley to 17th Street and came downhill on Locust before I realized it had no brakes. No problem.

The plan was the have it painted whatever color the painter was using that day. Fortunately, it was bronze, about the color of a beer bottle. It took awhile for it to get done but it is definitely my bike now. I could not be happier.