pictures.

Part of the reason that I have been so slow in posting lately is my new photocycle (bicycle for photography - more on that in a second). A few months ago I decided I wanted to learn more than just basic maintenance on my bike. I figured that the best way to do that was build one up from scratch. I am no good with books and manuals - I can’t learn from reading - I have to do it. So, I asked Torsten to help me. Luckily for me, he’s a nice guy because I leaned on him pretty hard and put his family out quite a bit as I dragged my bucket of parts into their apartment and set up a bike stand in the dining room. Between their kindness and the coolest bike shop in the world I got it done. And, it works. I got on, rode it and nothing fell off. a huge victory

earlier I said this was a bicycle built for photography. That was the number one parameter I had when building it. To do this I selected a touring frame and fork to build up from. Touring bikes are made to haul tons of weight long distances. It made obvious sense for me since I needed something to hang a computer, two camera bodies, three lenses, a video bag and all the associated stuff off of. This photo does not have the front and back racks or the fenders attached yet. I built 36 spoke wheels because of all that potential weight. They won’t be the fastest wheels, but I figure they will be tough. It has only one 38 tooth chainring in the front but has mountain gearing in the back, 11-34. That should get me up almost any hill i encounter but still give me a little speed on the flats. It has a bar end shifter - part of the reason was cost, but it also bar end shifters are less maintenance, or so i am told. Finally, i put disk brakes on to aid in my ability to stop the bike in the rain. And yes, if you have not heard, it rains here.

So my plan is to use this bicycle instead of a car or truck as much as I can. I will go to assignments on it as well as the grocery story and commuting. Obviously there are times it won’t work (like taking my dogs to the park), but I will ride it as much as I can.

In some ways building it was like photography - it was the creation of something. The bicycle is an expression of my imagination. It sounds kinda weird but it’s true. I imagined the bike that I wanted, i imagined how it would look, the style of riding I wanted to do and that’s expressed within the creation of parts. That all sounds a little more philosophical than it should but i can’t help it. I get that way when in the early morning hours when i occasionally attend to this blog.