I was surprised to learn today that Osama bin Laden had been killed by our military. Now, I’m not the kind of person that is going to stand in the street and cheer another person’s death, but I’m glad that he is dead. He was a mass-murderer and an enemy of America.

As I reflected upon his death today, I wondered: does he have any connection to the bicycle culture here in America, and in particular, the DFW area?

The answer, surprsiingly is yes. Here is a photograph of Mr. Osama bin Laden on a tricycle in Ft. Worth, TX in the eraly 1950s (he attended elementary school in Ft. Worth):

Oh, wait a minute. This is that other guy with three names……..I always get them mixed up.  That’s right, this guy is Lee Harvey Oswald. Also reviled by Americans, and equally dead.

Frankly, the only real connection to Osama bin Laden and bicycles was here.

There was a 1980s really tall-framed Schwinn Voyageur on Chicago CL this morning that was apparently Mr. bin Laden’s preferred means of transport while living in Pakistan in the early ’80s, but it had sold. Damn!

God Bless America!

-H

Until last year’s elections in November, 90% of the City of Dallas was “dry”, meaning no alcohol could be sold there. Now beer and wine is sold throughout the city. I have lived in my curerent home in the Casa Linda area of Dallas for over ten years. What does that mean to me?

It means that my closest beer store is no longer five miles away by the Spillway on Garland Rd.  Beer and wine stores are popping up all over town, and the CVS Pharmacy at Garland Rd. and Peavy is one mile from my house. It also means I’m a helluva lot more likely to ride my bike to get a bottle of wine (see the bottle peeking out in the photo above) or six-pack of beer. I mean, I like riding my bike, but ten miles round-trip for a beer?

So for once in this crazy town, something that I care about actually got voted in. I followed the election closely, and voted as many times as I could………

(that’s a joke). But the proponents of this new law, this wetness in a dry town, never pointed out something that I thought was a huge selling point.

It’s soooooooooo GREEN. Think how many people now have a shorter drive to buy beer and wine. How many people will now walk, or ride a bike, to the beer store? If you look at the entire city, I just can’t imagine how many less miles will be driven because of this law. And frankly, a lot of those people shouldn’t be out driving anyway, so a shorter commute is good for them, too. And us.

So thank you, Dallas voters.

-H

The Dallas Morning News released new details in today’s paper from police reports relating to the tragic death last fall of Lauren Huddleston on the Katy Trail. Ms. Huddleston was struck and killed by a bicyclist while jogging on the Trail. Read the full story here.

The bicyclist that struck Ms. Huddleston, Asher Hamilton, was training for a marathon and was travelling approximately 17-19 mph. Frankly, I’m not even sure I can go 19 mph on a bicycle unless I am on a pretty steep hill. But I would just as soon go 19 mph on a bike through Northpark Mall on a Saturday morning as do it on the Katy Trail when it’s crowded. That said, Mr. Hamilton was not at fault or violating any law, because there are no laws governing speed on any bike trails in Dallas. Until we get some sensible ordinances relating to bicycle safety and speed, let’s all be careful. I use the bike trails almost every day: I commuted to my office yesterday via the White Rock and Santa Fe Trail.

-H

I found this bike on CL last week, and it has proved to me to be an interesting lesson.  It’s a 1987 Schwinn Super Sport. The guy that I bought it from told me that his brother bought it new in 1987, rode it only a few times, and died very soon thereafter. It has been in a garage ever since.

I’m a Schwinn fan, but my knowledge of these bikes is more confined to the 1960s and 1970s models. This beauty is pristine:

  As Schwinn began to go to hell in a hand-basket in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I knew that they had begun to move some of their manufacturing to other countries, and that they had also begun to buy parts, frames, wheelsets, etc.  from various other manufacturers. Some of the bikes were well-made, and some weren’t. But I had no idea that some of these late 1980s Schwinn Road Bikes were made with such quality components.

When I called about the bike, the owner told me that it was a “purple Super Sport”. The photo in his ad was so bad you couldn’t tell what it was, so I was thinking that it was a Violet 1970s model. He didn’t tell me the story about his brother until I got there. He was asking so little for the bike that I knew there was gonna be blood in the water in CL land, so I sped to Hurst, Tx right away. 

 Obviously, it isn’t “Violet”.  In Schwinn’s 1987 catalogue, they call it “Magenta”. In 1987, this “Magenta and White” color scheme was the only color that you could buy this bike in.

It’s immaculate.

I was shocked to see a Cinelli stem and Cinelli bars on this bike. I thought for sure that they were after-market, but I was wrong. They are stock. Two bottle cages came with the bike, although only one is shown in the first pic.

The frame, too, is apparently a product of Italy. It’s Columbus Tenax Double Butted Frame Tubing, with chrome-moly stays and forged dropouts. The Super Sports, as well as the Circuits, were right below the Paramounts in Schwinn’s top of the line. They were serious bikes for tri-athletes and the like.

The components are all Shimano 600 Ex Grouppo with index shifting.  Biopace crank-set and Aero brakes.

This is the way I found the bike. I haven’t cleaned it.

The pedals and toe-clips are Shimano 600, as well.

It has the original ‘Christophe” toe-clip strap.

Beautiful!

I’m always buying bikes on CL that need work, but not this one.

OK, that little rubber thing needs to be adjusted. I just noticed that.

The bike came stock with a San Marco saddle:

French-made Rigida 32 spoke black anodized SX100 Alloy roms with 700 wheels.

The bike came with his brother’s original 1987 Reebok shoes that fit me. And the pump. And a chain rest. And new Michelin tires. 

It’s a 56 cm frame (Schwinn calls it a 2i inch). I usually ride a 58, but I have short legs, so I’m trying this out to see if this frame geometry is a better fit. The Miami Vice looking color scheme is growing on me. And it’s just a really nice bike. Lightish for steel, maybe 22 pounds. And zippy. It’s also the only unrepresented decade in my bike collection (that’s going back to the 1960s, no farther).

If I don’t keep it, I might break it down for ebay so that I can have the Cinelli stuff. But maybe not. Maybe I’ll save it for a true believer and make someone’s day. It sure made mine.

-H

Really.

Here’s the view of my street last night, on my birthday no less!

Not even in August will I complain, if only my front yard doesn’t look like this.

When I’m going down Peavy Rd. to White Rock Lake, this doesn’t make me want to get on my cool vintage Schwinn.

And I don’t want to find a beer like this ever, ever again.

Now, the margaritas, that’s different.

-H

Late last summer, my friend Justin showed me how to replace the cables, housing, tubes and tires on my 1973 Schwinn World Voyageur. I have never really showed her off since that time, and so I am taking the opportunity now to do so and show off a few more little additions. The color is “Kool Orange”.

I had decided this was going to be my geeky Touring bike, and I have since been on the lookout for age-appropriate Schwinn additions. So, when a 1971 Schwinn Varsity showed up on CL with original Schwinn “Shorty” fenders, I was pretty excited. I love their stubby look, and they don’t show up on used bikes very often.

I dashed out in the middle of the night to grab this bike, and so I didn’t take good photos of the Varsity sporting the fenders before removing them. Here is a picture of the Varsity sans fenders.

The lovely Schwinn-Approved fenders.

By Weinmann.

I purchased the Varsity from the enthusiastic daughter of the original owner. She still had the Owners Manual.

And the receipt from a Dallas bike shop long shuttered: here’s a shout-out to my boyz in “75238″!

The receipt even had the amount extra that was paid for the fenders!

$2.75? That’s  $14.41 in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation, while that $106.46 total price similarly adjusted would be $557.51.

It was interesting to me as a Schwinn enthusiast and bike collector to see the two bikes side by side and look at the differences in quality between them. The World Voyageur was one step down from the Paramount, and the Varsity was Schwinn’s bottom of the line road bike. The quality is at opposite ends of the spectrum. The Varsity, while a sturdy and dependable bike, hasn’t held up so well as the World Voyageur.

And finally, out in the front yard prior to a ride this last weekend before this crazy snow and ice. I’ve added a Brooks B-17 saddle, the afore-mentioned fenders and those wheel reflectors. They were liberated from some junked out Schwinn road bike from the 70′s that I failed to photograph.

Again:

And again.

I love this bike. It’s part of my core group of bikes. Look for me around town.

-H

Justin Husman, Reporter-at-Large for this Site, tells it like it is from downtown Plano this am………

this is it.

I say, in my own opinion, shame on you DART. And I’m still at the house.

H/H

I’m throwing in this pic of my 1978 Fuji S-12S LTD. I took this pic on Sunday January 30, 2011 when it was 74 degrees!!

I haven’t done a damn thing today due to the cold weather and icy conditions. It’s 18 degrees.

But our intrepid Reporter-At-Large, Justin Husman, is not of the faint at heart set in North Texas as reported by his-own-self here.

I’m adding to Justin’s 15 minutes by posting this pic I took on his birthday last year when we rode to the Great State Fair of Texas. We ran into Tim Delaughter of Tripping Daisy and Polyphonic Spree fame. We’re all pretty tight. Tim’s the guy with the hair.

-H

I am obsessed with vintage Schwinn bicycles. I am also obsessed with what I think of as bicycle utility, which to me means carrying stuff around with me on my bike. I have tried everything: rear racks, front racks, back packs, messenger bags, et cetera, ad infinitum. I even own a Schwinn Town and Country Tri-Wheeler with one of those  removable rear baskets, for crying out loud, and I’m not yet seventy years old!

But there is one thing that I haven’t tried, and I’ve been looking for one. One of those old-school pannier-style metal baskets. I have been looking for a set for quite some time. I know that I could buy a shiny, brand-new Walds, or some such thing, but I want something vintage.

So when I saw an ad on CL for the above bike the other night asking $35, I called the guy and brought it home. It’s a 1972 Schwinn Speedster 3-speed.

With a nice old basket. That’s my cat Robbie Knievel in the picture above. Here’s a close-up of the rather beefy basket:

No more basket!

Here is the front light assembly that I didn’t strip from this bike prior to resale. That’s the Compassionate part: letting someone else enjoy their bike purchase with a little extra.  I also wanted to throw in this pic to show you my fluffy siamese cat, Cocoa Puff.

I ended up selling the Speedster for $40 to cover my cost plus gas. It’s a pretty nice bike, and the guy that bought it was ecstatic. That’s the Fair Part.

So what to do with the basket?

The above bike is my Office Bike. I use it to bomb around Lakewood, E. Dallas and downtown, and I need to carry stuff. My briefcase, groceries, books, beer, etc. I haven’t been satisfied with the capacity of that Schwinn-approved rear rack. I have a lot of bicycle racks, and I don’t mean the kind that you get from the cross-bar.

The rack worked better than expected, and it absolutely doesn’t make a rattle or squeak. That’s an important issue to an anal-tetentive guy like myself: total silence. So what’s the point? Is this some pat on the back story about my great basket? Well, sort of. But the more important story is that you can often find a bike part that you seek on another bike for sale. Buy the bike, get the part, and pass it along.

It’s fun. It’s re-use. It’s green. Try it!
a href=”http://www.bikingindallas.com/about/michael-w-hubbard/”>

-H

I like this. “Dallas goes Outside” is a good theme for 2011, and it’s on my list.  It’s nice to see D magazine recognizing some of the efforts of both organizations and individuals in this town that are trying to make this a better city to live in, more breathable, greener, thoughtful, fun, etc., etc., etc.

So get outside and ride your bike! Or have some more coffee wait until it’s a little bit warmer than 24 freaking degrees. Criminy!

To provide a visual for this story, I’m going to throw in an image or two from my bike-friendly vacation of the last few weeks. I was determined to take my 1991 Bianchi Sika  with me on my trip to Austin, then to Goliad, and from there to Port Aransas on the Gulf Coast.  Plan A didn’t generate a lot of enthusiasm:

Plan B involved some creative packing, but it was a go! The plucky Scion xB has an amazing amount of cargo area.

Next stop: Austin! More on my bike friendly Texas vacation later.

-H