The other morning when I arrived at work this bike was in the crew room. Due to some shuffling around, there are different people reporting to my location now and I assumed one of them had bicycle commuted. Turns out he didn't but had brought the bike on his vehicle and was planning on taking it to a local path to ride after work.

What a nice looking bike. Almost makes me want to go buy a road bike.

This is a frame I purchased it at the first Midwest Bicycle Swap. I occasionally bring it down from the attic and build it up. Here is the first time and here another time to take to the Tour De Fat in Colorado.

On a whim the other night I once again got it down from the attic. It's pretty rough. I took the angle grinder and a flap disc to it then primered it. It was 50 degrees in the garage. Not good for painting.



Next night I painted it (again around 50 degrees) and started building it back up. The paint is a Rustoleum textured paint. Has a faux rusty/patina'd look to it I think.


More on it later.

Today we trucked our bikes to the big city and went for a 22 mile ride mostly along the Arkansas River path. Midway (21st & Tyler) we stopped and fueled up on Buffalo wings, a Prosciutto sandwich and beer at Old Chicago.
The weather wasn't as nice as we'd hoped it would be. It was cloudy, chilly and breezy.
The river looks pretty pathetic and is being overgrown with trees and other vegetation. The dam that normally keeps the water level higher and looking decent through the downtown area of Wichita has been taken out and a new one being built.

Video I shot at yesterday's dinner and ride.

Today we attended our bike club's 5th annual New Year's Day Pot-Luck Dinner and Ride. As always it was a great time. A lot of good food and the weather was pretty good with the temperature in the upper 40s. 25 people rode. One of the food dishes Nova made and took was a pasta salad made from the bicycle pasta I received for Christmas.

We were really hoping to ride today but... just too windy and we have to get ready for a couple of parties and I need to get this year's Coasters movie put together and the DVD's burned plus I feel like my cold or whatever I had is coming back. How's that for an excuse? We should get a little riding in tomorrow though at our club's annual New Years Day event. More on that after it happens.

In the meantime here are some crappy bike related photos from this past year that I don't believe I've posted yet. Most were taken while out and about at work with my camera phone.

Our Daughter, Grand-kids and my parents joined us to open gifts this morning.



Bicycle Related Christmas Gifts I received. Another Barbie bike and bicycle shaped pasta.

The bikes that we helped assemble two weeks ago were given away this past Saturday. Families camped out over night in front of the venue for a chance to receive the bikes and other gifts. Here is a nice video of the event.



This evening while working I spotted 2 of these bikes being ridden down the sidewalk. The streamers of the girls bike caught my attention, then I noticed another girl was following on one of the boys bikes. Seeing the 2 bikes together I knew where they'd come from. Nice to see them being used.

Photos by our friend Ralph.

Here is the organization that made this possible.