April 1, 2010
Man do I have an ever greater appreciation for the basic simplicity of riding bikes. Shitty bikes, especially. You might call ’em “vintage.” I call em shitty. And that’s a term of endearment, trust me. Riding a shitty bike is just plain awesome.
I was in Brooklyn, NY last weekend. Williamsburg to be exact. Hipster haven. My brother lives there. He’s a woodworker and wigged-out creative type dood. I took the train into Penn Station, NY and met my bro there. We spent the weekend walking all of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. It was a great time. And it got even better when he introduced me to Old Blue and New Blue.
My bro locking up Old & New Blue
Old and New Blue are two bikes my brother rescued from certain death on the streets of Brooklyn. They were abandoned and he came upon them. First, Old Blue. And later, after he got a taste for bikes, he found and rescued New Blue. To resuscitate these bikes, my brother did what all of us “riders” would never do – whipped out a can of WD-40 on the chains to break them free. Ya, WD40. It worked. Well, actually.
Old Blue is a baby blue city cruiser made by Huffy circa 1960 (I think) with a three speed internally shifted hub. You change gears using a crazy light switch-looking three position ratchet switch that tugs a pull chain at the hub. The pull chain attached to the hub looks just like a living room lamp’s pull chain. Old Blue rocks a giant, white, girl’s seat. Yeah.
New Blue is a dark blue colored Free Spirit Brittany. It’s an 8 speed with no ratchet engagement on the shifters. When shifting, you just guess on position. I think New Blue was circa 1965. Both bikes sported massive, bent up fenders and really, really crap brakes. It was awesome.
When we first picked the bikes up from my brother’s apartment, we noticed that New Blue had a cracked stem. No problem. We had an arc welder and we welded that bitch. Can’t do that on your $4,000 dollar mountain or road bike, can you? How sweet it is.
My brother, cleaning the area he was about to weld.
Dropping loads on the chrome stem.
Once the welds were complete, I began to tighten the pull on the brake cable. I tested it, and snapped the cable immediately. Rear brake was out. Who cares. We agreed to leave and go see Pete, the bike man. What an adventure this was. Pete runs a “bike” shop. The shop has no signage, save for the hand written 8.5″ x 11.0″ piece of yellow paper scotch taped to the door window that reads “Call Pete” with his cell number below his name. The store was a friggin’ mess. Bikes everywhere. No room to stand, no product to sell, no displays. Just shitty bikes thrown everywhere – just like a junk yard. Pete had some Park Tools laying on the ground and a Park truing stand flopped over on a folding chair. He just works outside and waits for hipsters and neighborhood kids to pull up needing fixes.
The Front of Pete's Shop
When we rolled up, Pete was fixing a bike on the side walk. He has to. There is no room inside. His bike stand? Didn’t use one. Pete just leans the bike up against a tree and goes to work. While we were waiting for him to fix New Blue, lots of hipsters were walking by asking if Old Blue was for sale. They loved that bike. Must be something to do with the baby blue and white scheme. As beat up as it is, Old Blue looks really fat that way. Sorta like a vintage trophy. Pete explained to several people that Old Blue was a customer’s bike but that he had other vintage bikes like it for $175.00. Around those parts, they might pay it. But these bikes are beat to shit. You can buy ’em at any garage sale for $25.00-$75.00. And for the record, none of Pete’s other bikes were “like Old Blue.” Oh, and mountain bikes of any kind – forget about it. According to Pete: “Would never buy em, can’t resell em, only the foreign delivery people ride them.” Nice. Pete fixed New Blue’s brake cable and hammered out the rim (literally) for $10.00. Good deal.
Pete working on New Blue
Once New Blue was back up and running (new cable worked, but the brakes still didn’t grab for shit), we took to the town. Rode everywhere and just locked the bikes up. You’d need a complete Craftsman tool kit, can of penetrating oil, and a vice grips to get ANYTHING off these bikes anyway. No fear in leaving em. They were very safe.
First stop – the pier. A view of Manhattan. New Blue got me there. It was doap.
View of Manhattan from Brooklyn.
Next, we ventured into Bushwick. Saw a lot of really cool legal graffiti art getting bombed, converted warehouses, and other shitty bikes all chained up. Check these two bikes out. A tall boy and a golden goose bike. Really? A golden goose bike? Yes. A golden goose bike.
The golden goose bike. Word.
We saw this tall bike on the way to the Pier. Chained up in Bushwick.
When night fall hit, we kept riding. Lots of food places and lots of bars. Each time chaining up the whips and going inside to chill. After leaving one bar, my brother decides to break it down and show me the proper way to ride Old Blue. He dropped the serious gangster lean on Old Blue. And I gotta say, on that bike, yeah, it was pretty pimp.
My brother, demonstrating how to pimp ride Old Blue.
As the night progressed, our crew got bigger. We picked up one dood name Andy. Andy’s our peoples from back in the day and a fellow Brooklyn-ite. He didn’t have a whip so we doubled him up with my brother on New Blue. I got to ride Old Blue. Pretty tight. We went to three bars like this. It was fun as shit. Don’t take my word for it. Look at these guys’ faces. Riding bikes makes everyone feel 13 years old again. So cool.
Tandem riding Old Blue- FUN!
Around 3am my brother and I took off across the Williamsburg Bridge toward the Lower East side of Manhattan. We cooked it across that bridge, man. For those that don’t know, there is a pedestrian / bike only portion of the bridge. Barely anyone on it. Just us, balling into Manhattan on these shitty bikes at 3am. I ride Baltimore City all the time. This was nothing like it. Riding into Manhattan like this…with the city bearing down you as the buildings get taller..taller..and taller as they near. It was heavy, massive, thrilling, grimy, exhilarating and just plain fun.
As we crossed the bridge, we made our way over to the bar and club area. This was yo-boy, pretty-boy heaven. The typical club scene. All the guys and girls were outside. It was a mass of people preparing to make it home from the clubs. And there we were. Me in my Fox T-shirt, my brother in all denim, and the shitty bikes as our trusty steeds. After people watching for a while, we had enough and pedaled home. Back over the bridge.
Bikes rule. Plain and simple. It doesn’t matter the size, the shape, the condition, or the year. To some extent, I have always known this. But I do not think I truly appreciated it until now. I love that shitty bike, man. New Blue, YOU’RE MY BOY!
Thanks Stefan. Can’t wait to do it all again soon.
nice to see those bikes at work man. i had been nagging stefan to get a shitty bike for years. when he brought old blue to my place for a tune up i knew he’d be hooked. but not to such a degree!! we gotta get andy on one next! it’ll be my personal project. sounds like you had a blast….
tommy
Hell yeah. It was a great time man. Would be awesome to get Andy pedaling. There is no better way to cover city ground! Thanks for putting stefan on, Tommy! We’ll have to meet up next time I’m in town.
oh yeah! lotsa fun. i gotta get me a cruiser.
Hell yeah. Then I can come back and we can bomb the city as a posse.
haha looks like fun, christos anesti yo!
Thanks for reading and commenting, Theo! Alithos anesti!
Great story. I got a late 50s Western Flyer Galaxy Flyer womens cruiser. Its green and has velocirapters on it (for no good reason) Ive had some good times on that thing.
Nice! Got any pics you can post a link to? Would love to see it Dave!