This Seat is Broken

August 21, 2021

This Seat is Broken

Tongue in cheek, please. I don't need anyone thinking there is anything serious going on here.

It was lunch time after all; past lunch time in fact and, well, we had yet to eat. All the salable items were laid out and so, the truck being boxed in, how was my assistant going to get to the burger joint up the street. Luckily, fortunately, or something else entirely, this bike swap meet being held at a bike shop, there was the shop bike to get her there and back again.

If you weren't there and, since I was on hand from the start, I'm guess most of you were not there, today was the second bicycle swap meet, hosted by (or at least held at) the Local Bikestand). Unfortunately, I guess, I did absolutely nothing to prepare, instead choosing to wait until the "morning of" to stack bins of old parts, partially built bikes, containers of cycling magazines and CLR Effect books, old VHS tapes of big-time Euro-races, even a pair of Nordic skis with poles into the back of the Tacoma for the drive over to the shop. It was well worth the effort just to hear the kids' comments - "this bike is dirty" (it was quite dusty), and "this seat is broken" (it wasn't, but the seller - me - certainly could have spent the minimum effort to tighten the seat bolt) and, while there was interest in the old Bottecchia, vintage jerseys, and expressed appreciation for the various CLR Effect books, the total sales amounting to $3.00 - kind of underwhelming - did buy a couple sodas to go with the burger, and still left me with a buck profit. In hindsight, I suppose, deciding after it had already been put out that, "sorry, but that cap is not actually for sale" might have impacted the profit margin.

That's all right, the swapping of stories, the laughing at this and that, and the just hanging out was a fair use of three and a half hours. Plus, there's nowhere to go from the bottom but up. Hopefully there will be another swap at some point where i can try to redeem myself, offer completely built, CLEAN bikes with secure saddles.

Thanks go out to Scott, Greg and, overseeing all the Booshway, Diana - it was a fun, if not profitable way to spend the afternoon.