Labors of Love

Used to be, whenever my heart was tired, I'd find a project to occupy my hands and mind... Rewired a few guitar amplifiers in the space of a long distance relationship, gutted a bunch of houses when I was single... Labors of love.

This weekend was a busy one. An intense two-day recording session with the band garnered many hilarious photographs and led to some real hard work that's been a long time coming... some stellar takes, and really just a great time, tedious as recording can get. Interlude on Saturday night for John's birthday, which lead to some old friends reconvening on a rooftop in Clinton Hill, polishing off a bottle of wine. It was superb.

There was another labor of love this weekend, however. Having Friday off, I took my beloved 1979 Raliegh-Carlton Supercourse racing bicycle back to Bayonne and put it under the knife for some much needed repairs.

It's been a while since unmitigated geekery took place on this blog... Skip ahead to the next paragraph if you hate technical information.
I put some new tires on, a pair of Continental trainers -- up until this point the front tire was still the original from '79 (there are no words for how hard it was to get that front tire off. Except maybe "ouch"). I fixed a few odds and ends that needed fixing, like getting a real seat binder-bolt (instead of the manifold bolt from my uncle's '73 Porsche that had been keeping the seat post up until now), and I took off the fantastic but quite worn out rear dérailleur (a Suntour VGt) and replaced it with a sleeker, shorter-caged and newer Shimano 600. The Suntour is still the better piece, but is far too worn-out. Maybe I'll rebuild it for fun and put it back on. The major work however was taking a drill to my classic racing steel in order to mount a pair of Campagnolo Athena brakes, a very sleek set of brakes that, while slightly heavier than the originals, are %1000 better at being brakes.

So, my beautiful racing bike is now in sexy racing trim. And while she will never be as fast of a machine as, oh I don't know, say, a triathlon bicycle, the Raleigh is in great shape, quick, agile, and still manages to look classy as hell.

The same, however, cannot be said for me. Those keeping score from home might recall that an accident two months ago did enough damage to the Raleigh to keep it off the road, and enough damage to me to keep me off the Raleigh. And while we're both healed now, the bicycle is in much better shape than it's rider. Granted it's a pretty cold rain outside, but I was unable to keep my test run up for more than ten minutes before my stamina started running out. I knew this would happen, as cycling was my only regular cardiovascular-supporting activity...
Interestingly, though, my exercise regimen intended to keep my strength up while injured must have worked, because my legs are powerful as ever... dug in to a sprint and got the bike up to speed with a healthy cadence without much effort at all. It was just all the cold air in the lungs that I couldn't take.

So, the bike's back on the road.
And better looking and better riding to boot.

And not a moment too soon... I've gotten myself involved in a series of races coming up in April.