Thursday, March 26, 2009

ride....

I drew this after an awesome ride to Prospect Park to pay respect to my father, whose ashes are buried under a Tea Cup Magnolia near the meadow. I'm so glad warm weather is upon us!

When I was in college I was a serious bike geek. I saved for 2 years to get a 13.5" Gary Fisher Advance, chromoly frame, all-terrain bike (I wont bore you with the rest of the specs, but I certainly could). It was the smallest adult bike on the market and I wanted it! [insert laughs at the size of the bike here]

After 10 good years of riding Electra (as I named her) and lots of waitress jobs, I fell into the world of advertising. I was Senior Art Director of a small agency on Park Avenue South (so I'm showing off, isn't that what this is about). I would ride from my not-so-fabulous loft in Bushwick (definitely pre-gentrification in 1998) to 28th and Park. As with much of NY, there was a scaffold surrounding my building. I locked Electra up to the scaffold and went to work. When I came down for lunch she was gone. Bitch got stolen!!! Not outside my shit-hole in Bushwick, but on Park Ave!

A number of years later I was at my daughter's school telling someone of my beloved Electra. She said she had a bike that she never rode and gave it to me! The generosity of some people never ceases to amaze me. Now it is no Gary Fisher, but it certainly gets all those assy muscles working. I have a yuppie kids seat on the back so I can ride the little guy around, although I'm having some trouble with the seat hitting the break. I cut off part of the foot rest to see if that will help, but it didn't (please comment with advice). Even with the faulty breaks I am in love again and I've got the muscles to prove it!

Along with my FREE bike, the helmet sketched above was also FREE! I got it at one of the DOT free helmet giveaways. Check out the DOT calendar for the next giveaway in May. I am such a sucker for good free shit and there is plenty out there.

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