Stone-Age Steering and Space-Age Spacers on a French Frame

            On Easter Sunday I was finally back on my normal animal protein diet. I had peameal bacon and eggs with two pieces of toast for breakfast and coffee with real milk in it.

            Around midday I went out to post the envelope that I’d forgotten to mail to social services the day before. It was surprisingly warm outside so I was glad that I wasn’t going far with my hoody and my leather jacket on.

            I spent most of the afternoon writing about my visit to the food bank the previous day.

            That night I cut into quarters the little chicken I’d bought the day before and grilled them. I had one of the legs for dinner with some tortillas and salsa.

           

            On Monday I needed to buy paper towels and toilet paper, but I also needed money to spend on my bike building project. I had about ten dollars already but I decided to take the risk of cutting into my May rent money and to take out $20.00. I think that I should be getting some tax return money soon but I’m not sure, because I clicked the option of having my return split up over the year. But then again I’ve made that same choice every year since it’s been available and yet I still got some money right away.

            I took a siesta earlier in the afternoon than usual because I felt tired, but I was refreshed when I got up. I had lunch slightly later than usual and at 17:00 I took my project over to Bike Pirates. Where I’d left off was finding a ring to cover the ball bearings on the headset. I looked through the bins but couldn’t find an exact match. The volunteer on the floor was Melissa, so I asked her about it. At the same time I mentioned to her that I noticed that she and my daughter are friends on Facebook. She confirmed fondly that they’ve been close for quite a while. She seems like a good person for Astrid be connected with. She’s very engaging and confident and she seems like she’s been around.

            I told Melissa that I’d already re-cut the threads on the headset and she told me that if that’s the case then that part is no longer French, that meant there was no reason to fiddle around finding a ring that matches when I can just mount any headset there now. I told her about my bike at home so she told me to go and get it. When I brought it back she saw no problem with me just using the headset from the Phoenix on the French frame. So we put my old bike onto the stand and I started removing all the parts from the headset and laid them out in order on the worktable. For removing what I think are called the upper and lower head tube races, she brought a tool from the front that looked like a pipe wearing a sheet metal grass skirt. It was inserted into either end of the head tube and then whacked with a hammer and the races popped right out.

            Some customers and volunteers were discussing racing bikes and Melissa complained that she has been told that she needs to get certified for the Milton track. She said that the irony is that she certified the people that are telling her she needs to be certified. I told her that reminded me of Shelly Winters when the movie “The Poseidon Adventure” was about to be made, she was told that she had to audition. She walked into the producer’s office, put her two Oscars on his desk and then asked, “Ya still want me to audition?” Melissa liked that story and then she started singing the theme song from The Poseidon Adventure: “There’s got to be a morning after”.

I cleaned all the headset parts and then we installed them on the French frame. Melissa commented that it’s a good frame and she guessed that it’s a Mercier. I looked it up later but didn’t see any similarity between images that I found of Mercier bikes and my frame. All of the Phoenix headset parts fit fine on the French frame but there was a lot of extra space that we had to fill up. We found several rings that we screwed on one on top of the other and Melissa commented that it made it look like something out of the Jetsons. She said that down the road I could always cut the extra length of the stalk.

Finally we installed my old Phoenix handlebars onto the French frame. It looks weird but I prefer the old flat bars to the curved grips that look like ram’s horns that were on the frame when I bought it.

Melissa suggested that we could now start putting on a seat, but it was already after 20:00 and I told her that I had a piece of chicken with my name on it at home. I cleaned up my worktable and took the parts of the Phoenix home then I got the French frame with the handlebars and settled up at the desk just as Duonne was making his final donation. He’d finished his bike building project so he wouldn’t be back until he needed repairs. I assume that will be soon since he’ll be Uber driving with it, which I assume will cause some wear and tear on the machine. I had overheard him mention that he also speaks French and I asked him to confirm that. He immediately started speaking in French far too fast for me to follow. I asked him if he’d heard me singing in French from my window and he declared that was another connection that we had. The guy at the desk asked where I play and I told him mostly at home but that I have a gig at the Smiling Buddha on June 3^rd. Duonne wrote down the info and promised that he would be there.
            Duonne told me that he works for Coinamatic and told me to call him if I ever have a problem with the washers in my place. I told him that I do my wash at the Laundromat. He just said, “We’ll talk.”

One neat thing about this project so far is that the only new parts I have gotten from Bike Pirates are ball bearings and the only other parts I’ve gotten from them at all were the rings we’d used that night for spacers. Everything else has come from my old bike. I guess that will change soon when I need cables and tires because I don’t think my old tires will be transferable to the French frame. I still have my old seat but it’s not in great shape so I may need a better one of the same kind.