Freewheelin' Villian
Years ago...Ok, first, we know we're getting old when we use phrases like that...but I am not getting old, just wise! Enjoying the riding and fixing and loving the freedom. Anyway, I was thinking back the other day to years ago, years ago when I was in college. Back in college, I found myself this old Gazelle, it had a Continental lugged frameset...70s boom bike style set up, but it was beat...dent in the top tube...battered up paint and decals, it was BEAT. Tour De L'Avenir was the model I believe. I took the rear freewheel off because it was skipping. Found a BMX freewheel cog and slapped it on the rear 27in wheel and clipped and cut the chain, set the tension and pulled back the wheel into the semi-horizontal dropouts. dropped the one shifter for the rear, mounted the other onto the seatpost, and shortened the cable. I was running a 44t and a 46t upfront on a cottered crankset of some unknown origin. I later in life dropped the 48 and the shifter and just kept it as a single speed freewheel. But down in Harrisburg, where I was going to school nearby in Hershey, I used the 46 plenty with the 16 freewheel in town and heading to clinicals in the early a.m. hours...it was all downhill but that's a whole different section of this story.
So I am getting nostalgic and thinking back to the days of my single speed freewheelin' bike and wishing I would have taken a picture back then...thinking of the days when I slapped on my scrubs and headed into nursing clinicals...ahhh, the early 90s...seems like only yesterday...'cause it was practically only yesterday. Yep, you had a choice, sit in the daily traffic for what seemed like eternity and leave for 7am clins at 5:30am with a bunch of hair spray smelling pissy she-bitches who focused more on how they looked for the resident and intern docs or sleep in, shower and get off to a rolling start...30 minutes tops and I was sitting in the parking lot over near what I believe was a spanish church in lower derry area. Just a quick hop through hummelstown, down derry with a shortcut through lower derry and the manor hill projects and I was sitting where my home health nurse would pick me up...in no time. She would often ask me "why do you cut through the manor hill area when you could just fly straight down derry...you're very lucky to get through somedays." I felt it was an exaggeration to worry that much but then again...I would simply respond...tell me how many people are gonna mess with a 6 foot tall, skinny 130 pound paler than a polish casper white boy with LONG hair waving in the wind, dressed in blue scrubs with the one pant leg taped up with duct tape and screaming all the way down the hills....lovin' every minute of the ride. Not many...most just cleared aside and watched in bewilderment at the oddity.
So I am sitting here thinking back to how I sort of miss that freakish bike and those odd times. One type of bike not in my mix is a single speed...freewheel. Don't get me wrong...I still am a fixie here at heart but I like the variety this lifestyle offers. So, I am going to mix two favorite aspects into one. I found myself a Specialized Expedition frameset in a 57 c-t...perfect for a cross bike sizing for me. And, I have rigged up some tubular UFO Cross tires I scored onto a set of rims I picked up at the most recent and wonderful Trexlertown Velo Swap. campy montreal rims laced to some ofmega Old Skool hubs. (scored the wheelset for $5!!). But those are road rims aren't they...cease the talk naysayers...they are whatever I want them to be I say! Besides, tensioned up nice and solid...they will last fine! Slap on some nice cantis with some eagle claw pads and I am set. So that is my latest project. It will be a fine PsychoCrossin single speed. Nice!!! Can't wait. My inspiration being the Gazelle of old...which I have long gone and sold off. So now there will be a rebirth of a single speed in my life. Can't wait to write about the tales of riding this one.
So how is all this related to Fixed! Well, Freewheelin on that single speed Gazelle is where is all originated from...See...Someone once saw my Gazelle...asked me to take it for a spin and said...you should try mine. He had this olde, taped up, ratty tatty, grungy Atala...track frameset. chrome dropouts that were fouled majorly by many many miles in the streets. So I hopped on and started to crank it out...went to coast and nearly broke my head in a sudden skip, hop, and jump of the back tire...I recovered quickly and listened to him and his friends laughing from behind me...as I spun to get control while cursing him in my head. Once I spun around the parking lot a bit, I got good control and was lovin' the FIXED feeling. Meanwhile...he was digging my set up of actually being able to shift into the higher gear using the lever on the seatpost..."damn fine suicide leva...lovin it!" So he loved my rig...I was liking the solid feel to his, compared with the major chain slap I would get from the chain slack when in the 44t...and out of the maddness was born a desire to get Fixed.
These stories are just daily tales by me, Walter Skrzypek