Random event

Most bicyclists have had the experience of running over a rock with the bicycle rear tire with the result being that the rock shoots off to the side.  This all occurs below and mostly behind you but every once in a while the rock hits something and you notice.  A mailbox post, a yard sale sign, something fairly close to the ground and fairly close to you.

Doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.

Today, for the second time that I can remember, I hit a car.

I feel kind of bad, I own a car myself and I am certain that I would think rocks shooting off the side of my car would be an unfortunate occurrence.

But it also feels kind of extraordinary.  I mean obviously completely by accident, I couldn't do that again if I tried (except that I just have).

A very random event.

I was riding past Merriam Park when I came upon this not for sale bicycle but fairly obviously like totally available for immediate acquisition by anyone interested.

Behind that guard rail is a no man's land of brush about 10 feet in width followed by the back side of a freeway noise barrier.  That bicycle may have been back there in the brush for a couple of winters at least.  You can see where the chain on the upper track is stiff with rust.

So is the lower track and the cogs are also completely rusted.

I ride past that spot sometimes in the fall when the leaves are gone and it doesn't strike me as unusual to find a stolen and abandoned bicycle over there.  I have seen frames near the noise barrier behind the brush before.

Two things about this one.  The tires are still holding some air.

And when we were in Vancouver in 2012 we rented bicycles probably not quite as nice as that one.  It is actually a fairly nice bike.

And on the whole bicycle for acquisition front I rode past the yard on Como Avenue where a fellow citizen more or less openly conducts a used bicycle lot.  He takes donations, he also does repairs, some of which never get picked up, he chains them to the tree in front of his house and sells them.

I wonder if he knows about that Giant at Merriam Park.

Anyway, today he has a Schwinn Traveler and a Trek 400 mountain bike for sale.

That Schwinn was actually a fairly nice bike in its day.  I am uncertain but I think that is Schwinn after the first bankruptcy but before the second that caused the brand to be diminished and totally shamed into its current status as one of the cheesiest of department store brands, available at Target.  At the moment that the Traveler was manufactured Schwinn was still a quite respected brand, the best or nearly the best American brand.  I should know, I owned a Schwinn at about that time.  Mine was a 2x5 ten speed, I think it cost less than $200.

This was all before bicycles got really light and before the sector of the American upper middle class willing to spend a king's ransom on a super light bicycle came into being.

At its moment that was a nice bike.

The Traveler is solidly built, so solidly built that I bet that bicycle weighs 30 pounds.  It looks to me like a 3x7 21 speed.

The Trek was also not a bad bike when it was new.  That's one of the very first suspension forks.

I don't want to quibble, that guy has been running that business there on the boulevard in front of his house for the last several years.  I presume he has priced those bicycles at somewhere near what his experience tells him the market will support.

As for me?

I think he has the relationship correct, the Trek is a nicer bike than the Schwinn.  But I think the prices are too high, too high by quite a bit.  I wouldn't pay more that $50 for the Trek and then only if I was going to use it to commute to work in the winter time with the intention to just throw the bike away in the spring.

I wouldn't have the Schwinn.

I became aware late in today's ride that there has not yet been any useful information posted here about this.

Corn, June 1.

Looks about ankle high, an absolute cinch for knee high by the 4th of July.