Catalogue raisonné (warning, long and nostalgic)

All of my bikes, ever. Since about 1981 I have never been without a bike. Here they are, in chronolgical-ish order.

1980-81 (3 or 4 years old)- Dad builds my first bike, a mini-BMX out of a bunch of old parts. (I inherited my thirst for modifying and creating things from him.) It was the envy of all the other toddlers, black with yellow pads, seat and grips. Training wheels, but they didn't last long.
*Outgrew

1984-My first "big kid" bike, a Team Murray from K-mart. It probably looked about like this, except red.

I remember it said it was "mig-welded" on the frame. Later, when I saw Top Gun I imagined the Mig jets firing lasers out of their nosecones, (where else?) seamlessly fusing the tubes of my bike together.
*Outgrew

1989- Mountain bikes were all the rage, so I begged my parents for one. I got a blaze-orange Huffy 12 speed. Looking back, it's hard to believe that I rode that thing as hard as I did, but 12 year olds don't really think about death, even when flying down a rocky singletrack, trusting their lives to weak caliper brakes and Chinese sweatshop welding. I rode it over every inch of the valley (Goshen Valley)
*Threw it away after the derailleur snapped off and caught in the spokes, sending me flying down aforementioned rocky singletrack without aforementioned bike.

1992- By this time I had a job in the cherry orchards and umpiring baseball games, so I'd saved up $300 for a real mountain bike. I got a beautiful new Fuji Chikara from Gart Bros in Orem and spent hours admiring the iridescent blue-purple paint, the 18 speeds, cantilever brakes and quick-release wheels. This was the first bike I had that smelled like a bike should, (basically like Phil Wood grease.)


(same color even!)
I took it to Moab three times and all over any trail I could find in Payson Canyon and my old favorites around Goshen. When I moved away from home, it was my only source of transportation.
*Stolen

1995- After my Fuji was stolen, I was 18 and living in Provo, attending UVSC. I still didn't have a car, so I went to "the bike shop on Center Street." It's changed names a million times since, but I think at the time it was Swen's Cyclery. I got a Specialized Hardrock, it wasn't really much of an upgrade from the Fuji, but I did get my first suspension fork installed on it, a RockShox Quadra 21 (not R), which effectively doubled the price of the bike.
*Rode it around town for a year, put it in storage, later sold it to the neighbor kid in Goshen.

1996-Went on a mission to Perth, Asutralia. Was told to bring $300US to buy a bike. We didn't get to actually go out and buy one, though, they just took our money an handed us each a Liahona Mission. Embarrassing. They seem to be a little better made now, but we got the prototypes and they were flimsy and cheap cromoly things with alloy parts that snapped or stripped out if you looked at them sideways. Still, I managed to hold it together through two Aussie summers and thousands of miles before it was stolen.
*Replaced it with an Apollo, an Australian brand, which I sold back to the mission when I left.

1999- Home again, I sold my Specialized and used the money to buy my first (and last, so far) "expensive" bike. My friend worked at Taylor's Bike Shop in Provo and built a '98 GT Zaskar LE frame they had in the shop up for me for only $600. It was a beautiful bike, my first with Rapidfire shifters, threadless headset, nice, light wheels, V-Brakes, Judy fork, etc, etc. Flawless, USA made lime green frame with all black components. Sadly, I had a car at this point, and was interested in "dating girls," so my poor GT didn't get as much use as it should have. I still loved it, and it pains me that I was so careless. In 2003 I started commuting by bike, we went down to one car and I lived reasonably close to the U in Salt Lake, so it was great. A week after I started riding it though, somebody clipped the cable lock and walked away with it in broad daylight. Sniff.

(mine looked much cooler than this one)
*Stolen (obviously)

2003- I was only working part time and my wife didn't make much money, so I was forced to buy a cheap bike yet again. I found another GT on ebay for $179, a yellow and black Aggressor that didn't look too bad, threadless headset, RST fork. THe parts looked suspect, but what can you expect for under $200? I got it in the mail and have been constantly upgrading it ever since. Currently, the only original parts are the bottom bracket and headset, both of which I would like to replace. I've built it into a failry decent bike though, it has a 1x8 drivetrain with a mix of LX and Truvativ parts, a Judy SL fork and nice Rhynolite wheels with LX hubs. I'll show you a picture sometime. The original wheels, crankset, fork and other assorted parts are presumably being used to anchor a small boat somewhere.
*Still own

2005- I realized that commuting by mountain bike isn't very efficient, and made plans to build a singlespeed commuter. I found a late '90s Gary Fisher Hoo-Koo at a pawn shop for cheap and bought a rigid fork, drop bars, aero brake levers and skinny tires for it. I stripped off the metallic green paint and sprayed it flat black. I got a Singleator-ripoff chain tensioner and it rode like a dream, even though I didn't really know what I was doing and just guessed about the gear ratio.
*Sold, 2007 on Craigslist.

2006- I decide to build a fixed gear after seeing this bike, which is still one of the most perfect (non-Vanilla) bikes I have ever seen.

Of course I can't afford anything like that, but I did find a nice, lugged Univega at the bike collective and without much trouble was able to covert it into a pretty cool fixie.

I rode it like this from March to July, then deciding that while fixed gears are fun, I needed something that could take me longer distances, converted and modernized it to a 16 speed with Sora/original Suntour drivetrain. Now it's my commuter, despite the excessive gears and it will be my race/century bike next summer.
*Still own

2007- I found an old Schwinn Mesa runner at the DI, took the wheels from the fixie and rattlecanned it new.


I plan on selling this one though, as I need to clear the space for another project, and my future (dream) EAI Bareknuckle, which I can probably get if I just sell my plasma and/or other assorted bodily fluids for six or seven months...

So that's all of my bikes, and quite a bit about me too. I ride because I love it, because it's cheap, it's good exercise, because it makes me feel like a little more of the solution instead of the problem. I ride my mountain bike for the thrill, my road bike for the convenience and speed, my fixie for the discipline and fun. I've been commuting by bike (and trax) for over four years now and I can't imagine ever going back to a car.

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