It Only Took Twice As Long

I haven't given up. In fact, I feel more inspired than ever. Today I finally recieved my bicycle frameset. Due to the aforementioned technical mishap it took a minute longer but at least it's here. Now I have what might resemble a bicycle scattered throughout my apartment. Hell with some skillful duct tape work it could even look like a bike which is quite exciting. Have you ever put together a jig saw puzzle? Well if you have then you know what it feels like to get the entire border put together. Sure it's simple to find all the proper pieces and figure out where they might go, but you know that that is the first and most crucial step to finishing the master piece. My frameset is the puzzle border. Relatively easy to obtain but without it, all the other parts will never look like a bike.

Alas, as soon as someone closes the door, someone else decides to open a window. Such is the predicament I currently find myself in. What my next task is, is finding all the specific parts that might run up some dough in parts and labor. I'm referring to the rear cog, stem, and crankset of course. I still haven't settled on a gearing. I know what I'm going to be using the bike for so it's not like I have to take terrain or distance into account. The problem is that I don't really know how to ride a fixie. It's true. I don't even know how to skid stop or track stand. If I choose a gearing that's slightly high, once I get up to a comfortable cadence I may not be able to stop well. I know I can learn but I don't really want to resort to adding breaks if I can avoid it. This is something I can dwell on for a short while though, as I still have to get my frameset put together and lack a headset press.

I can't close without basking in my own glory for a moment. I have managed to stay within my budget and not go all out buying the things I want as soon as I see them. It's kind of a growing experience. I do hope that anyone who reads might understand how easy it is for cyclists to buy things and that holding back is a challenge. I'm not sure what I am going to get next but there's a few cranks I have my eye on. I also have to find a stem but I have a feeling that's going to get taken care of when I go to the shop for my headset. I wish I could say that will be taken care of this weekend but I had a slight mishap with my debit card this week so funding might not allow for it. It's all good though because with next weekend comes payday so it is entirely likely that I will accomplish yet another major step in this build at that time.

The tour de France has been quite riveting so far by the way, in case anyone cares.