Getting out of the house.

What a surprise my Trek 1400 winter beater has been. It is a wonderful bike. Found by the side of the road at the end of the summer with a tacoed rear wheel, I initially figured the 105 group it had would be useful on a future project. 

Put together some time in the very early 1990s with bonded aluminum, the Trek is light and stiff. Corrosion around the bottom bracket and chainstays made me nervous, but it cleaned up nice with a new wheel, freewheel, chain, bottom bracket and consumables. It has held up well. Besides most of February and its 115 inches of snow, I have ridden the Trek without worry and mostly without incident. 

The only trouble it has given me is the front downtube shifter boss. It's bonded like the rest of the frame, and it has come off a few times. Since it is a beater, it's nothing a little J-B Weld can't fix. The response I guess would be to say stop shifting to the small ring!

This not a goodbye. With all this snow and muck, the Trek and I are looking at another month, at least, of riding together before the Fuji comes out of hibernation to take over primary riding duty. 

So a salute to old, free road bikes that happen to fit perfectly and perform nearly flawlessly.

Trek 1100

I'm a little conflicted. I bought this Trek 1100 a few weeks ago for $25 on Craigslist, and I don't know what to do with it. Perhaps it's good that I sort of haphazardly picked this one up; perhaps I'll turn it into a "teachable moment."

My long-term goal over the next year or so is to purchase a new road bike. I already ride a vintage Peugeot, so I want something new, light, fast, and trouble-free. So I didn't even want this bike, which is an '89 according to the former owner.

It has a Suntour Edge 4050 "groupset," which bascially means a related group of components. Crank, brakes, derailleurs, shifters, etc. A guy in Charlton sold it to me. When I went to pick it up, his wife was the only one home, and said she "hadn't been feeling so well lately" so had stopped riding. I felt a little sad.

It just seemed like if you have a chance to buy a $25 Trek that's in great condition, you should just buy it first and ask questions (why did I buy it? being the first one!) later. Craigslist is flooded with overpriced bikes; this simply was too good to pass up.

It doesn't fit me. I may have actually considered keeping it, but part of the reason I want a new road bike is that I want one that fits me. I think I should be riding a bike that's 58 cm from the middle of the crank to the seat tube. This one's 54. My wife was a little irritated--she said I should have gotten rid of some of the junk bikes I have piled up in a short period of time before I went taking on another project. She was right, of course.

So my dilemma is this. It could use new tubes, tires, wires and cables. Maybe some new bar tape, and some brake pads. That's basically it. It's in really good shape. Do I invest in those parts (I can do it all myself) and see if I come out in the black? Or do I simply send it off into the universe for what I paid plus maybe some labor for wiping it off? Will the Gods of bike karma look kindly upon that, ensuring that I will be rewarded down the road?