Hello again blog! All sorts of things have been happening and are about to happen. But before I dig into all that, I have a love song for purple bike. A few years back I had a blog post, A love song to silver bike. Silver bike was stolen from my apartment in Baltimore: the building was broken into, and all of the bikes in the common area were gone. I also lost my bag, my lock, and a notebook with years of sketches and notes. It was a hard loss for me. At the time, I had just built up purple bike, a Gary Fisher Advance with a sweet purple/blue purple and silver/white splatter paint job as a wheelie practice/winter commuter bike.

Here it is after the initial build. I got the frame, fork, headset, bottom bracket, and stem from the Baltimore coop, Velocipede Project. I initially used some wheels thrown out by a customer who abandoned their bike at the shop, as well as the cranks and derailleur. I bought the saddle, brakes, pedals, and hite-rite. The tires are too big for the frame, but eventually fit. I later built a townie wheel set around an LX hub I pulled from the trash and a cheapo sanyo dynamo hub. After silver bike got stolen, purple bike became my commuter. I put a blackburn rack from the trash on the back and have ridden this bike not every day but many of them since. I took it to Blue Mountain once:

I rode purple bike through a couple of winters:

I have often compared this bike to an 81 Bronco. You can take to the grocery store, and it will get you some funny looks, but it will work great. You can also take it off roading, and you will get some funny looks, but it will work great. Recently I took it on a couple more serious off road trips:

Point is, purple bike is a mid-range bike from 2 decades ago. I did not spend very much money on it, and it gets me around town every day, lives outside in Brooklyn, goes camping, and still takes me mountain biking with some competence. Holy shit guys, this thing is incredible. It is not especially fast or light or fancy, but does many things alright.