The Best Bike Ever

Well its official, I own the coolest bike ever made. I picked up this beauty from a Craigslist posting after missing out on three others by minutes! With gas prices what they are, people are starting to learn the value of a good bike.


With my new job down the street this makes my commute about 5 minutes and about 3/4 of a mile, as opposed to the 125 miles away that my prior job site was! The new job is great, but it starts at 0600 hrs! EEP! Well I CAN ride the bike and drink coffee at the same time, but I thought I'd see if I couldn't do a little better than that. I'm no philistine after all....

I had an old bottle cage hanging around my garage that seemed to fit my mug perfectly. I drilled out the holes into the handlebars, which stay nearly upright in all but the most aggressive turns, secured it with a few loose parts I found at the bottom of my tool box and PRESTO! It doesn't look too secure in this picture, but I've road tested it and will stand-by the passing grade I've given it.

The sweetest thing about this bike is the way cool paint job. I have no idea when this thing was actually made, but I am guessing late 80's??? Further deduction places its previous and intended home at a Florida trailer park, given the name. My nana and grandpa had one of these things when they lived in Florida, and I remember riding it like a maniac, jumping the speed bumps and doing power slides on the shuffle board courts.


For my purposes and more grown up sensibilities, I've added a few other modifications. It came with this wimpy little wire basket, that just would not do. I had an extra plastic bin kicking around and mounted that on the back instead. It holds my big boat bag from Beans full of groceries with room to spare for a few other items. I originally just mounted it right to the frame, but I added a couple of pieces of wood to create a more solid mounting surface today, and it seems more stable now. As you can see, I put the reflector back there too, in a nod to safety concerns. In that vein I have a orange flag to warn people I am on the road.

Future modifications I am hoping to make are:
1) Adding a three speed hub--> as it is now, you max out your speed pretty quickly.
2) Lighting, possibly recharged from a mounted solar panel like the one I have that lights the flag in the front yard.

Stay tuned for future updates on the bike, stories of our Geocaching adventures and Sarah's new bike!