79pmooney

I had two for decades, My good bike, the 1979 Peter Mooney that is an all-arounder that can do just about everything except be high performance enough to race and my workhorse winter/rain/city fix gear. In my apartment and later the crazy years of my first home ownership which included a failed marriage, two bikes were plenty. Early '00s, new to me house with garage, out of my marriage - put together a fun, performance fix gear on the cheap. Later '00s, a good paying job. I could afford the titanium custom I"d wanted since I tool a spin on the Merlin founder's personal bike. So I had TiCycles make me one. Around that time I realized I wanted a geared version of the fixed winer/rain city bike because 1) the Portland area is not flat and 2) my body was no longer that of a 20 something. Built it up. Bike number 5. I retired my el cheapo fun fix gear because I knew it had been hit by a car before I got it and didn't want it to fail on those same hills and had a ti version built. Still 5.

Last summer, a forumite posted pics of a rusted '83 Japanese race bike frame. And there it was! The bike I raced and loved, only 7 years later with 7 years of active innovation and improvements. So now I have 6. No real reason for that last one but it is a pure joy to ride. Getting on that seat takes me back almost 50 years to the time when I had the body of a bike racer, the fitness of the top 0.1% elite and the ride as pure as the thin leather flats I ran in HS cross country.

6 very different rides despite all being dropped handlebar road bikes. Half are geared. Half are fix gear. One of each carries a lock, wears fenders and racks, is fully rain "who cares" and is lockable almost anywhere. One of each is an all day rider that can handle comfortable tires (no, not big) and can handle bad weather. And one of each is a special ride. That old racer and my Mooney; a ride that has seen me through my worst years, been my link to sanity and that I have probably 3000 hours of my life on.