Bike journey

I mentioned in a post a few months ago that my bicycle, an old CCM mountain bike, had been stolen. This is the (long) story of my "new" bike, its replacement.

The Auction
I had decided to buy my bike at the police auction. One of my childhood bikes, a white and yellow mountain bike, had been purchased at the annual auction, though it was largely a dud. I know that the police auction is a place where people typically go to overpay for mountain bikes, so I had settled on trying to pick up one of the smaller number of road bikes (10-speeds) that would go on the block.

In what I suppose might be considered an ironic twist, I had to walk the 2km from my parents' house to the auction location due to lack of transportation. It was heartening to see that some of those who drove had to walk nearly as far, as cars were lined up along a kilometer of the street leading to the arena.

I walked on the "scenic" Harte Trail, part of the network of trails known as the Trans Canada Trail.

Upon arrival, I was impressed by the size of the crowd,

but moreso by the sheer number of bikes the police service had recovered over the last year.

As I was walking among the bikes, I observed that mountain bikes and children's bikes outnumbered road bikes about 15-to-1, so I decided to be decisive when any road bike went on the block. I jumped at the first opportunity, had a brief bidding war up to $50 with some other guy, then went to claim my bike.

Unfortunately, most of the bikes at the auction didn't have any air in the tires, so again, I had to walk the 2km back to my parents house.

The bicycle
As much fun as it was to buy a bicycle at an auction, for a relatively low price, it wasn't all great. The bicycle had its share of problems. The tires were pretty worn down, so I replaced those with a cheap pair from MEC. A derailleur cable was rusted through, so I only had access to 5 of my 10 speeds. The rear wheel was bent, and one jaunt from my parents house to mine ended halfway because it bent further and could no longer be ridden, leading to a rather angry and unpleasant hour walk with my bicycle for me.

The rear wheel was replaced by a used one from Natural Cycle. The solution to the derailleur problem was a switch to singlespeed (I'm not man enough to ride a fixed gear) which I had been considering even before the problems. My friend helped me shorten my chain and finally, after weeks of procrastination, I was ready to ride.

The results
I've been riding the bike for the past week or so and I'm generally pleased. I do think I need to switch to a heavier gear ratio (my current 40/16 configuration doesn't give me as much speed as I would like -- changing to 48/16 wouldn't be too much trouble), and I'm a bit more leery when I negotiate some of the larger potholes than I had been with my old CCM. I'd also like to give the frame a paint job to cover up some of the rust, but I don't concern myself too much with cosmetic stuff like that. It's nice to be back on the road.