I kind of have a new bike since I killed the Tall Pale Hooker on a trail a few weeks back.
I haven't formally named the new bike, but names in the running include Minnie Pearl, both because I bought the frameset new and because the color is, according to Surly, 'Smoggy Pearl.'
Anyway, after Mo had a seizure and we missed church and my kids didn't want to visit the Nelson or Kemper Museums or even go to Worlds of Fun, and I decided I needed some fresh air on the new bike.
I stickered the new ride up, though. Including some stickers from It's a Beautiful Day, the head shop on Broadway.
Getting down to the West Bottoms was easy, but finding a place to shoot pics of my bike, well...
They need a number system like the meat counter at Bichelmeyer, there are that many photographers scrapping for a spot to shoot a wedding party, family, aspiring model, etc.
After shooting Minnie Pearl in front of Scribe's Billy Goat, I found a door I wanted to put my bike against and a photographer immediately asked me if I was about to shoot my bike.
What it was, she wanted that door, and she was willing to take a picture of me and my bike with my camera if it would move things along to where she could shoot her clients on that backdrop.
Meanwhile I got panhandled in a fairly original way by a homeless guy who had a bike with two flat tires. He wanted me to change the tubes as a favor, saying he even had the new tubes and would then take the bike to the gas station to air them up.
I'm like, I don't even like changing my own flats. Why I spend crazy money on Schwalbe touring tires, they save me from a part of urban cycling I have no patience for. Can I just give you some money instead?
He asked for ten bucks, I gave him five.
From there it was just a matter of staking out a claim. I could see photographers eyeing me as I set up to shoot, obviously wanting to shoe me away but of course having no more right to the All Packaging building than I had.
No comments:
Post a Comment