Two days ago my girlfriend Stefania and I decided to take advantage of the nice spring weather and go out for a bike ride around the neighbourhood. I took my vintage '54 Raleigh Sports (which I find amazingly comfortable and easy to ride) and she took a spare box store mountain bike which belongs to my sister, and rarely gets any use...
As we were riding around, I was telling her the history of how I came about my 3-speed while studying Mechanical Engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON. Essentially, I woke up one winter day, and found it on the front lawn of my rental house; probably there as a result of some drunken students attempting to ride it home after a night of boozing. In any event, it was in rough shape. I replaced the rusted fenders and chain guard with those from a newer ladies raleigh 3-speed which I subsequently threw away (in hindsight this was stupid, but at this point I already had 4 bicycles, and I wasn't interested in a ladies bike, and my family didn't want it either).
As we were riding around, I was telling her the history of how I came about my 3-speed while studying Mechanical Engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON. Essentially, I woke up one winter day, and found it on the front lawn of my rental house; probably there as a result of some drunken students attempting to ride it home after a night of boozing. In any event, it was in rough shape. I replaced the rusted fenders and chain guard with those from a newer ladies raleigh 3-speed which I subsequently threw away (in hindsight this was stupid, but at this point I already had 4 bicycles, and I wasn't interested in a ladies bike, and my family didn't want it either).
I guess it was after seeing how cool a vintage 3-speed really is, and after hearing that I find and throw away bikes relatively often (amazing the things you can find that students throw away in the student ghetto's around the uni...), and probably due to the fact that she didn't really have a proper bicycle, and because she wants to go picnic-ing on period matching bicycles, she asked me that if I find a ladies vintage 3-speed to fix it up for her....
Laughingly I told her: "If I ever find a vintage ladies 3-speed that is thrown out, I'll pick it up and fix it up for you", all the while thinking to myself that the odds of that happening are very low, and she'll lose interest after a month or two and that'll be that. Well...was I in for a surprise!
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