Saturday, July 09, 2005

One Man's Trash

The weather held out just fine for my commute home. In fact there was no hint of a storm. I took Grand Avenue up the hill to Summit and stopped at Grand Performance to pick up some new SPD-L cleats for my "commuter shoes"- my Sidi Energy that have seen their better days. GP is the main team sponsor, and I like to give them as much business as possible (and they give me a team discount). I rode my Schwinn Prologue conversion. As I entered the shop, a 40-something guy sitting on the sofa told me he "used to have a frame just like that." I asked if it was the same color. When he responded affirmatively, I joked that it probably was his old frame. He mentioned that he had placed a "Coke" sticker on the top tube. I mentioned that I had removed a "Coke" sticker.

Tale of the Prologue Conversion

At this point we realized it had been his old frameset. He said he threw it away years ago, and that he had a matching time trial frameset as well. I told him how I purchased this from an employee of Carlson Cyclery who had placed an ad at Craig's List, and that last time I was at Carlson's, they still had the TT frameset. He went on to tell old war stories about the bike's past-life experiences. He seemed to appreciate that fact that it had been rescued from certain demise- that it lives on as a work horse commuter.

By the way, when I purchased the cleats and they were ringing me up, the shop guy asked what category I raced. This made me wonder if they give more of a discount based on racing category. The way this season has been going, I should be paying more than full retail.

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