Good news and bad news about my new Igleheart bike.
The good news is that the frame looks incredible. The craftsmanship is superb, the styling is distinctive, the welds are exquisite, and the color looks so good I want to lick it. My initials are welded into the bottom bracket. I own this thing. How exciting!
The color is exactly what I wanted. My desire to have a unique color was granted: the painter mixed the tint by eye. There will never be another bike in this shade! It has a beautiful gloss.
Since I was promised delivery by the end of May and I just got it on Wednesday, I am understandably anxious to get it on the road and start riding. I haven’t gone for a long ride in practically a year due to the poor condition of my old road bike! After weeks of scouring bike shops and the Internet for just the right parts—another epic story which I won’t bother to tell here—I set about assembling it after dinner.
And that's where the bad
news comes in. The rear brake bridge is set 2 mm too high, a
problem that I think I can work around. More frustratingly, the
fancy braze-on mount for my front derailleur is attached about 15
mm too far from where it's supposed to be, making it impossible to
install any kind of front shifting system. So my build is aborted,
my planned weekend victory ride is cancelled, and I confront the
very real possibility that I need to unbuild the bike and have
Christopher strip the paint off, move the offending parts, and
repaint it. That could take weeks—and, ironically, there's no
guarantee it would be the same color when I get it back. Who knows
when and if I will ever ride this bike. Depressing.
Continued in part 6…
amanda ()
Her Dad ()
090710
Scott,
You promised the good and the bad to your reader and then sure served it up: I suspect that everyone reading this story over recent weeks must have felt “involved” in it owing to your enthusiasm for the work and promised result we each might expect from the creative artist and technically able and self- taught laborer.
I suspect you know “The She’’ will be “going through” with The He this coming weekend so you’ll be seeing her no doubt, as will Foonyor ~ then is coming back to the CapDist either right after that visitation or after returning first through CT ~ we have a double wedding shower weekend coming up the weekend after The She is in Boston/Cambridge. It going to be a busy summer for that gal and for her family (one of the hazards of a) marrying a somewhat younger woman, certainly a more energetic one than most guys get, and b) waiting ten years to begin a family that turns out to promote the family All- Girl standard: they get IDEAS, lots of them, and someone like me is assigned to just keep up. BUT …
…I have never been happier in my life!
KERaven ()
I want to cry for you, Scott.
Maybe you should stop now and hang it on your wall and a beautiful piece of art.
MRhé ()