It may be that my life is to serve as warning to others...

If you ever surf Despair.com, you're familiar with that line. It is the caption to a photo of a very large and quite dramatic ship wreck.

As I write this post, I'd like to honestly and with all my heart profess my undieing love for my wonderful wife. You'll understand later in this post.

The story begins like this...

I cleaned out the shop last night. I found it was getting cramped and hard to work wtih all those bikes and crap laying around. I migrated junk and tossed a HUGE PILE of trash. During the process I leaned all the bikes up against one wall. I really didn't pay much attention to this.

What, you might ask, is the point of this rambling?

The point is that I do, in fact, seem to have a problem. My wife got home from class about that time and the site of all my bicycles in one place at one time was a bit alarming to her... and to me.

Here's the list.

Santana Hardtail tandem
Ellsworth Truth
Ellsworth Id
ABM Comp-lite (custom geometry) converted to Single speed
ABM Comp-lite (custom geometry) geary (somewhat in pieces)
Karate Monkey 29er SS
Grove Hardcore fixed gear mountain bike
Cannondale F700(?) converted to single speed
Brew 180 proof converted to ss
Gary Fisher Cake
Manitou FS
1985 Diamond back apex
Voodoo Nzumbi Single speed
Tesch S20 custom road bike
One more that I can't remember off the top of my head

Neither my wife nor myself had seen all my bikes in one place at one time. They were liberally distributed around the shop. Oddly enough, we both just stood there and stared at them -- somewhat stunned. The cats were having fun climbing all over the place. Gracie was playing with the bells on the fixed gear.

I felt Laura shaking a bit. At first I thought she was crying. That would be my reaction if I was her. I turned to console her at her moment of need (see? I'm not such a horrible mate) and I noticed she was laughing.

What do you say at a time like this? I said nothing. I just held her in the face of this horror... both of us laughing.

She broke the silence.... "Wow! That's a lot of bikes."

Damn I knew I did the right thing by marrying that girl. After 13 years of marriage and 17 years living together, she still loves me for who I am. Am I the luckiest man on earth or what????

LenzSport just came out with a 5" travel freeride 29er. The first one is getting heat treated this week. If someone builds a fork for that badboy, bike #16 is already on the menu. Not really... Well maybe with next year's bonus.

In conclusion, I've found yet again, that I'm providing a public service to those who call me friend. As with many other things in my life, friends can point to me and tell their wife or girlfriend that things could be worse, they could have ME as their husband/boyfriend.

Have a nice day, dammit!

Pete

Post Script: While not all of these bikes are technically mine... Some have been donated by people who honestly have no intention of taking them back. Two belong to Julian (one I just gave him). One belongs to my friend Crashmore. His wife wasn't happy when his bike count hit 6. Thus the Cannondale sits at my house. I guess only 12 of the 15 would be considered "mine" in a court of law... unless you go by that "Possession is 9/10 of the law" thang. In my own defense, not all of these bikes are complete and ridable. Another strike against me though, is that I not only have all the parts to make them so, but they're not exactly bike salvage yard type parts.... and I've probably got spares for those too. Another thing in my favor is that I've got something in the works to get rid of the boxes and boxes of 1980s campy road racing wheels that have been collecting dust for all these years. Life is good!