Again in Might, I used to be the fortunate recipient of a Marinoni, which I set about rehabilitating to the very best of my meager skills:
The top outcome was a bicycle I very a lot loved using:
However as I’m doing my greatest to maintain the whole variety of bicycles I personal in test I in the end determined to public sale it and provides the proceeds to the Star Monitor Biking program, as they have been elevating cash to ship children to Junior Monitor Nationals:
It ain’t a lot, however I ain’t a lot of a human being, and promoting beat-up bikes I acquired totally free and giving freely the cash is about as philanthropic as I get.
“So who received the bike?,” you’re most likely not questioning. Effectively, it was some man from upstate who it’s possible you’ll know from the feedback as “Some Man From Upstate,” and this previous weekend he got here downstate to gather his prize. Out of respect for his privateness I kept away from sticking a digital camera in his face to seize the second, so as a substitute right here’s a random image of somebody receiving an award:
The plan was to do the ceremonial Passing On Of The Bicycle after which go for a journey, so we headed over to so-called “River Highway,” the favored roadie route proper throughout the George Washington Bridge:
[River Road in autumn]
After days of rain the climate was positively spectacular, however we quickly discovered the laborious means that River Highway was closed, which I might have recognized had I believed to test beforehand:
Normally when River Highway is “closed” you simply go across the boundaries and hold using, however this was dangerous sufficient that they had individuals standing there to show you away and all the pieces:
Clearly we completely may have ridden that on gravel bikes, however since we have been on mere highway bikes we circled and as a substitute headed over the mighty Excessive Bridge and into the Bronx for an impromptu tour of town’s most chronically obstructed bike lanes:
[The High Bridge many, many years ago]
On the conclusion of the journey I then tried to persuade him to take George Plimpton’s Y-Foil As a substitute, however being possessed of unusual restraint he insisted on sticking with the Marinoni:
[Subtlety On Wheels]
That is most likely a very good factor, since there’s clearly a marketplace for George Plimpton memorabilia:
And certainly his Y-Foil will solely proceed to extend in worth till in the future I’ll do an public sale with Traditional Cycle and we’ll use the proceeds to construct Star Monitor a model new indoor velodrome which we’ll name the “Plimptonium:”
[Architectural plans for The Plimptonium, a.k.a. “The House That Wife Oil Built”]
However pending that, because of Some Man From Upstate for not solely serving to Star Monitor but additionally releasing up a slot on my bike rack and bringing my complete variety of basic lugged metal highway racing bicycles all the way down to a extra manageable two, these being the Faggin:
And naturally the Cervino:
Of the 2, the Cervino is the (principally) period-correct one, and being barely bigger than the Faggin it affords me a considerably extra age-appropriate using place:
Because of the voluminous tubular tires it floats over just about all the pieces:
And whereas it could be missing within the low gear division the refreshing simplicity of working a six-speed friction drivetrain with one hand makes up for it:
Six-speeds are the brand new singlespeeds.
