Finally getting settled in life, the townhouse needing little in the way of repairs and the maintenance men taking care of the outside, I was free to pursue my hobbies. My favorite thing was to get on a bicycle, pedaling to unknown neighborhoods looking for likely subjects for my trusty camera. There was just one hitch, I didn't have a bicycle. Not that I couldn't afford one, but the ones I could afford were poorly made consisting of rubbery-feeling gears, intermittent anemic brakes and uncomfortable seats. What I wanted was a fast hybrid bike with eighteen precisely engaging gears and brakes that would slow my one hundred eighty pounds down a steep hill without smoking. Of course there are custom bikes assembled from top-of-the-line European components that cost thousands of dollars. I'm not talking about those. Just a decent quality bike that would last ten years with TLC and a little luck.

Bikes at this level of quality cost from four to five hundred dollars - an amount not even in my wildest moment could I rationalize. Occasionally on my trips to the local dumpsters, someone would discard an old bike for pick- up. These relics of twenty years ago were the rusted remains of now-college-age spoiled children who left them out in the rain one too many times. They never adjusted the brakes or gears and probably only rode them one year before relegating them to the garage rafters. Mostly sporting ten speeds and riding on skinny bump-sensitive tires, these cheap Japanese imports flooded the market in the seventies. I would walk them home, flat tires thumping on the pavement, trailing spider webs and loose brake cables.

In a week, I would have them straightened, polished to a show room gloss and working as well as they did when new. A flyer in the local super market would result in a call from a beleaguered father of four pre-teens looking for the cheap alternative bike. His kids would ruin them in a few months anyway, so these out-or-date but looking-like-new bikes fit the bill perfectly. In one month I recycled four ten-speeds for one hundred dollars. A trip to Sears garnered me a heavy looking cruiser bike with fat tires, only six speed gears and handlebars that swept back for upright pedaling.

The quality, or lack of it, was a trade off for the low price of seventy nine dollars.For five years, I enjoyed the Sears bike, putting up with the rubbery feeling gears and the constant adjustments to the brakes. It, of course still looked like new with the constant polishing and attention, but I was unhappy with the performance. Then one day I visited the dumpster behind a large bicycle shop. There were parts of bikes all over the ground, run over bikes, bikes with no wheels, rusted hulks of bikes and bikes with no parts at all. But there on the top of the heap was a beautiful jade green Diamond Back hybrid bike. The front wheel was pretzel shaped, but the rest was in pretty good shape. I examined the gears and was surprised to see Shimano gears of the eighteen speed variety. Evidentially a trade in for a newer model, this discard was just what I wanted.

Back home in the cellar, I found an almost identical wheel for the front end and proceeded to restore the Diamond Back to its former glory. I had been saving an expensive lightweight solid aluminum rear carrier that fit perfectly. Twenty hours of intense labor and two coats of gloss lacquer later I tenderly carried the result of my efforts upstairs. The sun sparkled off polished spokes as I wheeled it to the road. Settling on my new gel-soft seat, I took off slowly, the gears snicking like a Swiss watch into the higher gears.

Compared to my Sears clunker, this bike wanted to go. It floated above the road on its ball bearings, a secret hidden motor seeming to propel it without effort. Back at my front step, I braked firmly to a fast stop, without the usual vibration and squeak of complaint. I was now in bicycle heaven and it didn't cost me a dime.

Retired portrait photographer. Hobbies include graphic arts, photography, singing and fixing things.