I totally dropped the ball this year on Halloween, I don’t really know why I just did not give a sh*t this year. I realized I was looking for costumes 2 days before it and just said fuuuuggit. What I did manage to do though was to take apart my bicycle and chemically remove the 6 layers of alternating orange and yellow as well as 2 layers of primer and burgundy spray paint from the frame and fork. It took a few coats of paint remover but I got all the paint off and was disappointed to see the crappy welds that hold my frame together, it’s all kind of crude. Paint remover is pretty radical though.

After a while it started feeling like a tank and the anxiety I had about going in and tinkering with the bike was replaced with a zen like comfort that it is just a bike. I mean you can see it all right there in front of you. No matter how bad I screw up there’s always the local bike shops.

I did all with an allen wrench set, a long flat head screw driver, a small hammer, two large phone books, one small phone book and two trips to the bike shop for a lock ring and bottom bracket remover ($30). I also had to snatch a bag of bike tools from my moms house (priceless).

It was really cool to be able to get it all back together again too. Banging on steel with a phone book and a hammer was ghetto but it worked out nicely. It’s all coming along, need to get a wheel set and a new headset and then I will paint the frame flat black and probably change my handlebars. For now I just have raw steel and I’m hoping it doesn’t begin to rust.

Bike are for tweekers. The tools are all tweeked out too. Grease smells like grease. I smell like grease.