Convenience at first sight.

I found Rusty one morning as I rummaged through my friend Alice's basement while helping her move. Sadly for me, she was moving far away to pursue more sunshine, different people and a more lucrative job. I too needed a vehicle for a new perspective and just when things seemed at their most glum, I uncovered a sad looking, banana yellow, Schwinn Continental.

Founded in America by an immigrant German Mechanical Engineer, Ignaz Schwinn, with the help of German-American meat packer, Adolph Arnold, the Arnold, Schwinn and Company was born in 1895 in Chicago. One of the premier bike brands through the turn of the century and well into the Great Depression, Schwinn was, at one point, one of only 12 bike manufacturers in Chicago. (Wikipedia people)

The Schwinn Continental was a 10 speed road bike modeled after the European style racing bikes. Sleek in form but sluggish in function, the Continental was one of the first American bikes to sport a rear derailleur and shifting 10 speed gears. Built during a time when the paramount American bike company was straining from competitive pressure put on by sleeker, lighter and faster European and Japanese Frames, the Continental was an attempt to capture the imagination of the fitness rider while still offering a sturdy and comfortable riding bike.

Rusty came into this world with high expectations, but sadly, I found her lying disjointedly in the corner of a dank basement in South Philadelphia, her tires flat and her chains and fenders encrusted with rust. I collected her carefully in my arms like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree and wheeled her toward the back of my car. "What are you doing with that?" Alice asked, "where did that even come from, just toss it" she smirked heartlessly. "Alice, I said with a determined smile, this is my new bike."

It begins...

I'm escaping the Patco train station on 16th and Locust on a rainy and cold October evening with my trusty bike "rusty" at my side. Water drips from the bag that I've taped to the seat to keep my ass dry as I puddle stomp through the soaking streets; cars whizzing by, blowing horns because they apparently require more space. I gently stand up on the pedals, wheels shaking violently out of true and pull one hand off the handle bars to unbuckle and unfasten my pants exposing my pasty white ass to the discordant driver. Two lanes of traffic and a parking lane is apparently not enough clearance for this apple shaped simpleton. I curse with fogged breath as the light flicks from green to yellow to red; interupting my determined cadence home and I nearly topple onto the street as I brake and try to get off my bike with my pants nearly around my ankles.

"God damn it Rusty" I say as I morosely dismount, "why are you so fucking slow"? Drip, drip, drip, comes the reply as water streams down the wide angled handlebars. Rusty looks particularly unmotivated this evening, her thick black wheels sag and crack under my weight and the brakes croak with each increasingly panicked squeeze. "She was a shelter bike... I saved her" I say with a fake smile as a bike messenger looks scornfully down at the rust encrusted chain, wriggling because I know I'm being judged for being such a negligent caretaker. "She would've been used for scrap or worse if I hadn't found her" I yell as he effortlessly kicks off the ground and speeds away through the intersection. "Why can't you be more like that bike" I say to Rusty as I ferry her clumsily across the road, still trying to buckle my belt.