Bicycles I've known and loved (and sometimes lost)
I have a lot of disparate memories associated with bikes and biking: beach town cruising, years of commuting, moving house once “like the Viet Cong” my helper-friend noted, numerous explorations of woods and neighborhoods. One time my shoelaces got caught in a bike's gears and I fell over. I was 28 years old. So many memories!
In the interest of not having to put together a particularly flowing structure, I’ve once again decided to provide a listy newsletter, with tidbits and thoughts. Here’s an unranked list of notable bicycles from my life.
1. The first bike I remember my parents buying for me, around the age of 8. It was a pseudo BMX style, that I never rode much more than around our block. On this or the next bike, I added a speedometer which pleased me enormously. One time in fourth grade, I was riding with Matt S., a neighbor kid, and at the bottom of my block’s hill, he lost control, flipped over his handlebars, and broke his arm. Around 2019 he & I recapped this memory in a Facebook thread. We remembered it slightly differently, of course, as he claims there was a dog involved. I have no memory of that dog, but I do remember that it was about 2 days before our elementary school's field day, so Matt would not be able to compete. I don't think he minded sitting it out.
2. The first bike I owned in The Netherlands, a Batavus, was the one I moved house on. About a year later, on August 9 2012, a thief stole it in the middle of the night. I’d parked it in front of my apartment building and locked it to the building's huge, sturdy rack. The trusty steed was gone by the next morning. At least one colleague blamed me for buying a cheap lock: “no Dutch person would buy such a cheap lock.” Oh, the victim is at fault? Personally, I blamed the thief for CUTTING THE LOCK AND STEALING. I spent part of my workday enraged, figuring out which circle of Hell bike thieves go to. It was, not for nothing, a small bike, for my small frame, so I hope the thief found it terribly uncomfortable to ride. What really bothered me was that this bike had a charming cheeseburger bell a friend had gifted me. A cheeseburger bell! (It also had a kickstand, rare for a Dutch bike, but essential to me.) The back rack was just right for strapping my portable bar kit to.
3. The bike Ben F. gifted me when I moved to Rochester: I'd casually mentioned an interest in biking to campus, and he and his wife got giggly with anticipation. It was a Cannondale 3.0, perhaps the SM1000, from approximately 1990 and for murky reasons he was never going to ride it himself. (He owned approximately 6-10 other bikes.) I had to sell it when I left the country, and the buyer was suspicious of my low, low price. I explained that I’d paid only for replacement brakes when I received it and that I was moving to a country that already had enough bikes. I would love to own this bike again and I’ve spent more time than you’d like to know looking for the specifics of it all. (Would you believe my Craigslist post from 2010 isn’t on archive.org?)
4. My second Dutch bike, to replace the stolen one. I dithered over how much to spend and what kind to get: folding? Omafiets? More gears than necessary? I ended up light and easy and pretty inexpensive, with a low, angular crossbar that would likely have been classified as a “girls’ bike” when I was a kid. This frame was also on the smaller side. Did I ride this into Germany once with the lab group? Maybe.
5. The black Diamondback Outlook my parents bought me in high school that later got stolen from Andy and Lindsay’s Mount Airy garage. Technically this is the bike I owned the longest time, though I feel like I didn’t end up ever putting many miles on it. Around 2014, I wanted to move it from Corning to Philly. As I wheeled it out of the house to a rental car, my mom and brother told me it wouldn't be possible to put it in the backseat. I disagreed, they pushed back. I ended up yelling at them: only one of the three of us had ridden a bike in the past ten years, let alone had any experience in putting them in cars, so I think I knew what I was doing. (They didn’t believe that I could pop off the front wheel to make it fit.)
6. There was a free bike from an Indy hall member that came to me at the right time and served me well for a bit when I lived in Grad Hospital. Then one night I had it parked across the street from the improv theater and came out to find it completely gone. The parking garage attendant informed me “a crackhead came, lifted it over the sign post and walked away,” no small feat. The attendant and I ended up exchanging information as I tried to, I don’t know, track down the thief who was known in the area for such activity? I also spent an afternoon navigating the Philly police department, who are not known in my family for being particularly friendly towards bike incidents. I tried to see where the thief had sold it, which led me to pawn shops. I spoke to one shopkeep, who effectively laughed at me: the bike brand was apparently so cheap that the store’s policy was to not even traffic in such bikes. So, no, the thief had not pawned my bike there. I never did find it or the thief, but about a year later at a wedding, a friend’s husband expressed his condolences for my loss. He’d seen my post on the Philly Stolen Bikes Facebook group, which, if you’ve never visited, is wild and busy eternally.
7-8. The OV-Fietsen (literally “public transit bikes”) Joshua B. and I rented in Zeeland for Easter 2013. We were ill-packed for the weather and biked into a headwind for 16km, miserably, from the train station to our cozy B&B that served us horsemeat for breakfast. On the upside, bikes on dikes were a rad way to see lighthouses and, uh, stare into the Dutch seascape with pals while eating fries. I keep a photo from this trip in my office now.
9 & 10. Do you count a draisine as a bicycle? Yeah okay! What about this railbike (arguably also a draisine) Kelsey & I enjoyed in the Adirondacks? Yeah sure too!
If I felt like doing more digital digging, I'd be able to tell you stories about the famous white bikes of de Hoge Veluwe, my first Indego ride, and a time I ended up having to tell a US Customs officer about. Maybe next year when I suffer the anniversary of Dutch bike theft again?
June and July! Let’s see what I was DOING.
Reading: I read an old article about the Insane Clown Posse and a newer article about Cambodian food in Kingston, Ontario. I started no books; I finished no books.
Eating: I quite enjoyed breakfast sandwiches from Johnny's Pork Roll, Forin, Kissaten, and The Biscuit Lady I took a childhood friend to the Southeast Asian Market in FDR Park. And we had a lovely big meal at Rex at the Royal. Kelsey & I tried new water ice and gelati flavors at Pop's on Oregon and at Chill Out in Ridley Park.
Beating: The new album Hills by August; maybe you can tell me how I learned of this, as I have no idea what this is or how I came across it or anything! I listened to a lot of Wednesday, in preparation for and after their show at Union Transfer. (I listened to "Chosen to Deserve" on repeat for weeks.) The Dr. Chillgood mixtape Summer Ice Cream Dream Vol. VI hit a sweet spot for my ears. While reading about the new hot "Fast Car" cover, I came across a playlist called Grocery Store Country which reminds me of childhood, and a Summer 2023 playlist from local journalist Dan DeLuca. There was new stuff from Aphex Twin and a Tiny Desk Concert from Juvenile. Locally, Michael the DJ released not one but two mashup albums and Tony Trov created HOAGIEWAVE. Kelsey and I gleefully drove through a playlist of the Billboard Hot 100 songs from 1999. I listened to nearly every song from this summer's Phish tour and caught night 2 of The Mann which was huge. (Look for more Phish content here soon! I know so many of you are excited!) And, last but not least, Kris and I worked to re-create Steve's 2003 mix CD Joe Albacore and the Chelating Renos, which Clerks director Kevin Smith recently declared an "excellent mix!"
Deleting: I gave up on some of the least exciting books that were collecting dust on my office shelves. I hope somebody at Reading's Schlegel Park Pool wants Lean In from the little free library there... My phone keeps warning me about running out of drive space, so I deleted dozens of podcast back episodes. I still have 21 GB worth of content that I won't listen to but feel compelled to keep saved.
Retreating: We visited Asbury Park for a day with friends. Kelsey & I had a sweaty, confused meander through Franklin Parker Preserve but would go back I think. We had a long weekend in the Dominican Republic for a wedding with lots of beach-lying and pool-splashing (and later, food-poisoning). Our annual family vacation to Wildwood closed out July.
Meeting: Podcastwise, I ate a weird sandwich on Cookbook Obscura and talked about storytelling on (un)common good. Coming up live, I'll be at Martha Cooney's book launch party. Aaaand I'm the guest speaker for Creative Mornings PHL this month!
Happy trails,
Neil B.
In the interest of not having to put together a particularly flowing structure, I’ve once again decided to provide a listy newsletter, with tidbits and thoughts. Here’s an unranked list of notable bicycles from my life.
1. The first bike I remember my parents buying for me, around the age of 8. It was a pseudo BMX style, that I never rode much more than around our block. On this or the next bike, I added a speedometer which pleased me enormously. One time in fourth grade, I was riding with Matt S., a neighbor kid, and at the bottom of my block’s hill, he lost control, flipped over his handlebars, and broke his arm. Around 2019 he & I recapped this memory in a Facebook thread. We remembered it slightly differently, of course, as he claims there was a dog involved. I have no memory of that dog, but I do remember that it was about 2 days before our elementary school's field day, so Matt would not be able to compete. I don't think he minded sitting it out.
2. The first bike I owned in The Netherlands, a Batavus, was the one I moved house on. About a year later, on August 9 2012, a thief stole it in the middle of the night. I’d parked it in front of my apartment building and locked it to the building's huge, sturdy rack. The trusty steed was gone by the next morning. At least one colleague blamed me for buying a cheap lock: “no Dutch person would buy such a cheap lock.” Oh, the victim is at fault? Personally, I blamed the thief for CUTTING THE LOCK AND STEALING. I spent part of my workday enraged, figuring out which circle of Hell bike thieves go to. It was, not for nothing, a small bike, for my small frame, so I hope the thief found it terribly uncomfortable to ride. What really bothered me was that this bike had a charming cheeseburger bell a friend had gifted me. A cheeseburger bell! (It also had a kickstand, rare for a Dutch bike, but essential to me.) The back rack was just right for strapping my portable bar kit to.
3. The bike Ben F. gifted me when I moved to Rochester: I'd casually mentioned an interest in biking to campus, and he and his wife got giggly with anticipation. It was a Cannondale 3.0, perhaps the SM1000, from approximately 1990 and for murky reasons he was never going to ride it himself. (He owned approximately 6-10 other bikes.) I had to sell it when I left the country, and the buyer was suspicious of my low, low price. I explained that I’d paid only for replacement brakes when I received it and that I was moving to a country that already had enough bikes. I would love to own this bike again and I’ve spent more time than you’d like to know looking for the specifics of it all. (Would you believe my Craigslist post from 2010 isn’t on archive.org?)
4. My second Dutch bike, to replace the stolen one. I dithered over how much to spend and what kind to get: folding? Omafiets? More gears than necessary? I ended up light and easy and pretty inexpensive, with a low, angular crossbar that would likely have been classified as a “girls’ bike” when I was a kid. This frame was also on the smaller side. Did I ride this into Germany once with the lab group? Maybe.
5. The black Diamondback Outlook my parents bought me in high school that later got stolen from Andy and Lindsay’s Mount Airy garage. Technically this is the bike I owned the longest time, though I feel like I didn’t end up ever putting many miles on it. Around 2014, I wanted to move it from Corning to Philly. As I wheeled it out of the house to a rental car, my mom and brother told me it wouldn't be possible to put it in the backseat. I disagreed, they pushed back. I ended up yelling at them: only one of the three of us had ridden a bike in the past ten years, let alone had any experience in putting them in cars, so I think I knew what I was doing. (They didn’t believe that I could pop off the front wheel to make it fit.)
6. There was a free bike from an Indy hall member that came to me at the right time and served me well for a bit when I lived in Grad Hospital. Then one night I had it parked across the street from the improv theater and came out to find it completely gone. The parking garage attendant informed me “a crackhead came, lifted it over the sign post and walked away,” no small feat. The attendant and I ended up exchanging information as I tried to, I don’t know, track down the thief who was known in the area for such activity? I also spent an afternoon navigating the Philly police department, who are not known in my family for being particularly friendly towards bike incidents. I tried to see where the thief had sold it, which led me to pawn shops. I spoke to one shopkeep, who effectively laughed at me: the bike brand was apparently so cheap that the store’s policy was to not even traffic in such bikes. So, no, the thief had not pawned my bike there. I never did find it or the thief, but about a year later at a wedding, a friend’s husband expressed his condolences for my loss. He’d seen my post on the Philly Stolen Bikes Facebook group, which, if you’ve never visited, is wild and busy eternally.
7-8. The OV-Fietsen (literally “public transit bikes”) Joshua B. and I rented in Zeeland for Easter 2013. We were ill-packed for the weather and biked into a headwind for 16km, miserably, from the train station to our cozy B&B that served us horsemeat for breakfast. On the upside, bikes on dikes were a rad way to see lighthouses and, uh, stare into the Dutch seascape with pals while eating fries. I keep a photo from this trip in my office now.
9 & 10. Do you count a draisine as a bicycle? Yeah okay! What about this railbike (arguably also a draisine) Kelsey & I enjoyed in the Adirondacks? Yeah sure too!
If I felt like doing more digital digging, I'd be able to tell you stories about the famous white bikes of de Hoge Veluwe, my first Indego ride, and a time I ended up having to tell a US Customs officer about. Maybe next year when I suffer the anniversary of Dutch bike theft again?
June and July! Let’s see what I was DOING.
Reading: I read an old article about the Insane Clown Posse and a newer article about Cambodian food in Kingston, Ontario. I started no books; I finished no books.
Eating: I quite enjoyed breakfast sandwiches from Johnny's Pork Roll, Forin, Kissaten, and The Biscuit Lady I took a childhood friend to the Southeast Asian Market in FDR Park. And we had a lovely big meal at Rex at the Royal. Kelsey & I tried new water ice and gelati flavors at Pop's on Oregon and at Chill Out in Ridley Park.
Beating: The new album Hills by August; maybe you can tell me how I learned of this, as I have no idea what this is or how I came across it or anything! I listened to a lot of Wednesday, in preparation for and after their show at Union Transfer. (I listened to "Chosen to Deserve" on repeat for weeks.) The Dr. Chillgood mixtape Summer Ice Cream Dream Vol. VI hit a sweet spot for my ears. While reading about the new hot "Fast Car" cover, I came across a playlist called Grocery Store Country which reminds me of childhood, and a Summer 2023 playlist from local journalist Dan DeLuca. There was new stuff from Aphex Twin and a Tiny Desk Concert from Juvenile. Locally, Michael the DJ released not one but two mashup albums and Tony Trov created HOAGIEWAVE. Kelsey and I gleefully drove through a playlist of the Billboard Hot 100 songs from 1999. I listened to nearly every song from this summer's Phish tour and caught night 2 of The Mann which was huge. (Look for more Phish content here soon! I know so many of you are excited!) And, last but not least, Kris and I worked to re-create Steve's 2003 mix CD Joe Albacore and the Chelating Renos, which Clerks director Kevin Smith recently declared an "excellent mix!"
Deleting: I gave up on some of the least exciting books that were collecting dust on my office shelves. I hope somebody at Reading's Schlegel Park Pool wants Lean In from the little free library there... My phone keeps warning me about running out of drive space, so I deleted dozens of podcast back episodes. I still have 21 GB worth of content that I won't listen to but feel compelled to keep saved.
Retreating: We visited Asbury Park for a day with friends. Kelsey & I had a sweaty, confused meander through Franklin Parker Preserve but would go back I think. We had a long weekend in the Dominican Republic for a wedding with lots of beach-lying and pool-splashing (and later, food-poisoning). Our annual family vacation to Wildwood closed out July.
Meeting: Podcastwise, I ate a weird sandwich on Cookbook Obscura and talked about storytelling on (un)common good. Coming up live, I'll be at Martha Cooney's book launch party. Aaaand I'm the guest speaker for Creative Mornings PHL this month!
Happy trails,
Neil B.
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