bike update

BIKE UPDATE
I know what you are all thinking. You think you'll be still be driving your jacked up chrome wheeled roll bar real window gun racked Detroit truck in a year or two. Ah, that's sweet. The dream dies hard. I can guarantee you that soon you will be walking or riding a bike. The best you can hope for is a brief interlude while you can still drive once a week to go get supplies. Then the rationing system will break down and no gas will be available. I can't know when, but it will happen. So right now would be a great time to sell your car. No one can afford a new car ( or can't get the credit ) so right now used cars are going for ridiculous prices. Sell at the top of the bubble, not after it's popped. If you are making payments, jingle mail that bitch. You can stockpile a comfortable amount on those car payments. I know it ain't as simple as that. One of you in the family might still have a job for a little while longer. But don't wait for the car culture to die before you put your fat ass on a bike seat. By then there won't be any health care available when you have a heart attack.
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Okay, one size doesn't fit all. As long as you know you will eventually need a bicycle. So, to that end I'll share my further adventures of biking to and fro the Bison Compound. A few weeks back I was able to put a little cash in the savings account. I hate to leave it there for bankruptcy bait, but I need a slush fund for emergencies. I swear my bicycle smelled my new found wealth ( shades of Christine! ) because only a few days later I'm coming into work and suddenly it feels like I'm riding on square tires. My front tire had split down the middle in one spot, the victim of shoddy Chinese material rotting apart. Here I was all focused on weak metal parts and all the time my tires were conspiring against me. I just know that the tire manufacture set me up for failure so he could have extra chop suey and an extra ten minutes on his cell phone talking to the factory manager on how to defeat the running capitalist dogs. Thanks a lot, Hungg Lo!
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It used to be that I could care less about the quality of Chinese goods. They were cheap enough to replace, in our long ago fabled Toffleresque future of a throw away society. Now that energy costs have doubled, as well as inflation, this is no longer the case. Now it is a real pain in the ass. You have to replace shoddy parts with better ones ( most likely still made in China, but with better ingredients ) instead of replacing the whole item ( five years ago it cost sixty dollars to replace the bike, or $50 to replace the back wheel ). Well, that plus the fact that soon no more imports will replace the Chinese crap. So it is time to construct a quality bike. A Wal-Mart beach cruiser with aluminum frame is $100. It will start to fall apart on you about three hundred miles. Here is my failure schedule. First the chain started breaking links. Then you could hear metal grinding in the back wheel about a hundred miles after that. Don't expect the rear wheel to last past 500 miles. The tire split after about 2000 miles. While the bike was in the shop he looked at the bearings in the pedal assembly and had to replace that ( totally shot ). He showed them to me ( I trust the guy, but he must have a lot of customers thinking he is like an auto mechanic ) and whatever they were, it wasn't a bearing any longer.
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The only thing left on the bike needing to be replaced is the front wheel. I am told it won't last another two thousand miles. It would be a little cheaper put in new bearings rather than replace the wheel, but I figure that way there won't be any Chinese crap parts left besides the frame and the handle bars ( and the pedals, but I'll replace that so I don't have to worry about it ). So, here's the total cost break down. The bike is $100. New, thick, green gooped inner tubes are $25 a set. Chain, $15. A new back wheel is $65. New front wheel is $40. New pedals, $15. Two new tires, $40. I could even get a new seat, mine is wobbly. $30. Repack pedal bearings, $50. So the total cost to turn a crap bike into a much longer lasting bike is $380. Check to see if your bike shop has them cheaper than that, but I doubt it. You could shave a bit off that by doing some of the work yourself, but the labor is pretty reasonable. I'm not paying the guys rent by buying a bike, so I won't begrudge him some labor I could have done myself. I don't want the towns only shop to go out of business.
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That's cheaper than a years car insurance. You turn from a pear to a stud. If nothing else, you keep your car and put the wife on a bike. Let's face it, the average American female doesn't stand a chance with a library full of diet books. Her doughy ass needs exercise. I'm not saying the guys look much better, but females get along on their looks whereas we get along on our wallets ( yes, I know that's why I'm single, thank you very much for reminding me ). Don't hate me FemiNazi's! I'm only the messenger. So, mainly this whole long winded message was that every part of your China bike will fail, including the tires.
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