I bought the body from a kid in East LA, the basket from the expendables shop, and the tires and spokes (144 each...) from Chubby's.
I got it home, took these pics, mounted the seat, began to pedal and discovered that this set of wheels weighs 8 thousand... maybe 9 thousand POUNDS. I can't even ride it without holding my eyes as wide as saucers because GRAVITY keeps tugging on the thing and encouraging me to make a wrong move so it can pull us both to the ground. This cruiser wants to laugh and my road-scraped elbows and chip off it's perfect chrome. It is like pedaling a Hell's Angels hog with one gear.
My misguided and feeble plan was to have the baddest bike at the farmer's market (talk about aiming for the low bar...) hence the wide array of enviable handlebar bells- but something went terribly, terribly wrong. Terribly...too far...out of control, really.
I love it so, so, so, SOOOO much- but it wants to hurt me. I think it would do anything to go back to East LA and be the imperfect, scuffed-up ride of a proper, snarky, bad-ass teen.
Obviously I now understand that I still have the capacity to make substantial mistakes.
This actually did surprise me. (I know, I know....)
P.S. The valve covers are made of Swarovski crystals, so I know I had this coming.
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