I woke up early this morning in order to catch the England/Paraguay stinker, and nearly fell asleep in the process of watching. I so very badly wanted England to be punished for their unimaginitive and boring play, but I guess Paraguay deserved just as much punishment... Joe Cole looked good, as usual. Too bad he plays for Chelsea.
Luckily enough I was rewarded, though, because as soon as the game was over I went for a bike cruise through the neighborhood to browse the neighborhood garage sales. I am not the sort of person who normally shops secondhand; I'm much too snobby for that. But I am willing to roll by and see what people have laying out.
I rolled by a house in the suburb across from ours and noticed a bicycle. From a distance the brake levers/shifters looked like they might be of decent quality (expensive bike parts have a certain look...), so I rolled around the block and stopped in.
The first thing I noticed was that the bike was $10. The second thing I noticed was that it has Shimano components, just like the expensive bicycle I had rolled up on...
Well you know what happened next. I am now the owner of what seems to be an early 90's (Japanese Brand) Miyata 914. It is a steel bicycle (my LeMond is aluminum) with Shimano 105 components, and apparently sold for something around $800 - $900 new.
For $10.
The bike definitely isn't worth $800 - $900 now, but someone has one listed on Ebay for $249; regardless it was a complete steal. I took the bike home, put air in the tires (one is dry rotted and need replaced, but they both hold air), lubed the chain... and now I have a perfectly servicable bicyle, with gears that work the way they should. The seat is completely horrible, and the wheels may need trued (a $20 repair) but other than that it's good to go.
Eventually it will probably end up as a fixed gear or singlespeed bicycle (like this one), and I'm thinking of a light blue powdercoat (like a bike I rode in Japan), but in the meantime it's a great beater bike. Or maybe better. Time will tell.
Anyway, awesome.
1 comment:
yo, good work on the discovery. 10 bucks is a good price just for one of the parts on that bike....not to speak of the whole damned bike itself. word. I wish there were garage sales in these parts...
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