Side street cycling

I'm bicycle riding on little back streets tracing a bicycle-friendly line towards the White Street Pier. I'm riding beside Eddie and Milo who are on the always fantastic xtracycle'd Peugeot. The weather is ideal. The sun is calm at this hour, and preparing to set in beautiful fashion. The conversation is heavy with bicycle-nerd content, talk of the way everything should be in general, with plenty of talk of how good things are at present. Things are good.

Interaction with children / more xtracycle

I've never had interaction with small children. Not much anyway. Just enough to scare me and make me a little bit uncomfortable. I like kids - I'm definitely for them - but that doesn't mean I know how to act when they're around. I'm sitting next to Milo and eating a bowl of whatever was left in Eddie and Melanie's place. Barley chicken lima bean soup with confusing crayfish parts. It's great food, but I could do without the pinchers. Milo expressed interest in the soup, and I got to let him try it. Then he continued to express interest, and I kept spooning it over. At 7:21 I'm having a sweet little family moment. I'm feeding a little boy who just turned one and learned how to walk. Milo will probably be saying word combinations before I leave, and I'm genuinely excited to hear them.

I'm here again for dinner because Eddie needs to change out the handlebars on his new xtracycle bike. Eddie likes to sit up when he's riding a bike. Because it's more comfortable. I'm starting to agree strongly with this style of riding. It is very comfortable to sit up, and makes a ton of sense for most people - but aside from beach cruisers, or goofy hybrid bikes you really can't sit up unless you do something drastic like changing the bars and/or stem, and often all of the cables and housing. That's what we're about to do on Eddie's bike. New bars and stem and cables and housing.

Eddie's xtracycle is one of the best bicycles I have ever seen or ridden. I already knew about the xtracycle because a guy rode up to my bicycle sidewalk sale at 46th and Locust on one. In Philly last year. I didn't know exactly how it hooked up to a frame or how awesome it is. The connection is simple and strong, and the added storage capacity and durability are staggering. I love this bike. After completion, we immediately took turns riding on the 'snap deck' on the back. There are huge, long panniers with a wooden surf board-style deck on top. I really kinda want one of these. You could go on a bike tour with no storage worries whatsoever. It beats a trailer, and it's way sturdier than a regular loaded bike because it has an enormous wheelbase. You could fit all the gear you could ever need on there. And it doesn't look that weird, and it's still just a solid two-wheeler and a very easy ride. The xtracycle impresses me. It makes so much sense that I'm almost slightly frustrated by its unknown-gimmick status. This is what you need if you want to carry big stuff on your bike. This is what we need as a people. Bikes can do everything, and this is another tool that helps. Eddie put on a baby seat and rode by the shop with Milo behind him, and Melanie sitting on the snap deck behind Milo. The whole family was enjoying a sturdy ride on one beautiful 80's Peugeot mountain bike. No problem. Amazing.

About Eddie's bike: Eddie had to decide which of his bikes would receive the xtracycle. The Trek with the chunky lugs was a candidate, but instead he chose a newly gotten yellow Peugeot mountain bike with lugs. Yeah - he has two lugged Peugeot mountain bikes. This one is yellow, and proclaims itself to be the "Crazy Horse" on the top tube. That's the model name, for real, and it's written in a western font style with a colorful mustang that matches the rainbow Peugeot decal on the downtube. It's in great shape, and after a little tuning it runs silently, perfectly. It still has the original freewheel, and the lowest (biggest) gear is stamped metal that is an integrated part of the big shiny spoke guard. This is very hilarious and awesome to me. We upgraded from the Lee Chi cantilever brakes and levers to some decent v-brakes and levers. Dude: the shifters are Simplex friction thumb shifters. Totally sweet! Eddie also put my briefly-installed Maxxis Hookworm 26x2.50 tires on. Those mega-fat tires on this mega-long bike make it a smooth load-bearing beast of burden bicycle. It floats around like a cloud over the earth, and you can literally ride around with a kayak and have an optional pedal-powered blender going at the same time. That's right. A pedal powered blender is possible.

Eddie's xtracycle. I eat.

Eddie made chicken and rice. This is really good food. Eddie finally bought an xtracycle after thinking about it and dreaming about it forever. It's here in an open box, and we've been looking at it. Since I'm Eddie's friend, and I have keys to a bicycle shop, I'm going to help him with the installation.

Bubba's: getting my money's worth

Eddie is to my right, then Nat, then Caroline. It's a round table, so I'm next to Caroline too. We're eating at Bubba's. $12.99 gets a big plate of food and unlimited Budweiser. I fixed up a found Peugeot bike for Eddie. He found it. Arrangements ended up such that he pedicabbed us over here. Perfect: I'm having a really good time. The Peugeot was a red lugged mountain bike. The head lug was a single piece for both the top and down tubes. I continue to enjoy big chunky lugs on old mountain bikes. This bike was in pretty nasty shape, but I showed it more or less how to act.

Return of the Scorcher, etc.

I'm chatting with Eddie and watching bicycle advocacy documentaries. Return of the Scorcher, We Are Traffic. Google video. We're getting pumped up about bikes.

Eddie's w/ Dreamane

I'm sitting in Eddie's back yard with Eddie and Dreamane. It's been raining on and off, and Eddie has constructed a little tent out of cloth and a big stick tied to a couch with some rope. We're under that. I'm here to deliver Eddie's bike back to him. I checked it over at work earlier. I didn't do much to help it. I put some grease in the rear hub, and tightened the cones to get rid of the play. It's a reasonable old Trek mountain bike with the (very) high rise handlebars you see everywhere in Key West. The paint is beat to hell, but I like the frame 'cause it has super-fat chunky lugs and somehow I respect it for that. This decent old bike would really shine, figuratively, with a new bottom bracket, cassette, chain, and brakes. It would shine, literally, with a new powdercoated paint job. But for now, let's remain serious.

Stopping by at Eddie's

I'm at Eddie's. Eddie has a boat that he lived on, but he's not living on it now. He said I could and should stay on it for awhile. I'm here right now mentioning Steve Klopp to make sure it's ok if he stays out on the boat too.

Talking to Eddie

More bicycle geek talk with Eddie - and also learning more about the awesome shit he's been up to for the past years. It's like Indiana Jones without the whip. Sort of. He lived on a boat, lived in remote Alaska on a bus, and now he's a daddy who rides a big tricycle for employment.

Chillin' at Eddie's

I called Eddie to see if I could stop by for a real proper shower. I ran into him at the library yesterday, and he offered that option to me. He knows I'm living in a van, and he's done that too. I took my shower awhile ago, and now we're just sitting around.

Fausto's

I'm at Fausto's buying some bullshit to eat because I have no plans about what to do. [ed note: since I'm writing this a week later, I'll tell you how it turned out AFTER 7:21, even though that ruins the format somewhat. I got a small thing of roast pork, since Fausto's is a cuban place and cubans tear it up on stuff like pork. Then I got a 6 pack of Yuengling at CVS for $5. Then I went and sat on a wall by the ocean in a little park area. Eddie stopped by because he had a ride over there. After all that beer, I decided it was time to bike up to Winn Dixie for some grocery shopping. If my watch beeped while I was sitting on the wall, that would have been perfect.]