Bored.
Ok, so I was bored. With my mountain bike out of action, and the cyclocross bike taking a break from the heat, I thought the commuter bike could use a little more attention. The one thing Sterance has been missing is a head badge. No more. After coming up with a drawing, I transfered the design to the unsuspecting head tube with some quality 3M painters tape. The idea for this design came from an interview with Gary Fisher I saw on the Trail Tapes podcast. This gloss white skull badge turned out pretty nice. Maybe a cross between The Punisher and a Tim Burton character? I used a pair of hemostats to pull the eye and nose masking off, leaving nice clean edges with no marring. but, if I get bored with it I can always find some sandpaper and start over, or possibly continue with the pirate theme.
On a related note, Sterance has been on the road for almost a month and has about 50 miles on the imaginary odometer. Prior to Sterance, I could not understand why so many people liked single speed bikes so much. Well, now I understand. Even though Sterance is heavy, old and slow, it is a lot of fun to ride, and makes both of my other bikes feel sluggish and immensely frustrating when they have drive train issues (like the M2). There is something nice about riding a silent, smooth and simple single speed. I am almost tempted to convert one of my other rides, but I’m not quite there yet. Although I’ve ridden a fixed gear bike, I don’t think it is something I’d like. I am a little partial to my still functioning knees; the swelling on the left knee has gone down considerably from the M2 crash (see the last blog entry).
