It is good that you did not crash. That WAS a good bike. I am reminded of the B-17 bombers from WW2 that were sometimes blasted apart barely holding together but got their crews home even if the plane never flew again. There once was a B-17 that was nearly cut in two after being rammed by a German fighter with a dead pilot at the controls. That B-17 made it home and after everyone got out the plane broke in two while sitting on the runway!
I've been riding the same electro-forged steel frame 1977 Schwinn ten-speed for the past thirty years. Even though it's hit the ground a few times, luckily neither the forks nor the frame have ever suffered more than scratches and are still straight so the bicycle tracks true as I ride with no hands while playing guitar at the same time.
This is the famous Minstrel Cycle reserved for a place at the Bicycle Museum of America after I die. It is the ONLY bicycle I have ridden the past thirty years or more, and the only bicycle on which I have ridden tens of thousands of miles while playing guitar. I know Chicago steel is strong, and electro-forging was a cool technique, but I also know metal fatigues inevitably. I worry that someday a crucial join will fail while I am riding and playing. Schwinn ten-speed frames of that era were known for being virtually bulletproof, but how will they stand up to decades of service? I am reminded of the Boeing B-52 bombers from the 1950s that are STILL in service AND expected to serve ANOTHER forty or fifty years! But those planes have a whole nation backing their maintenance.
When there are accidents, minor or major, the components most likely to need replacing on my particular bicycle are the gear shift levers assembly and the rear rack on which I bungee cord a battery-powered amplifier for the guitar. If I didn't have that amp strapped to the rack, the rear racks might not have broken as they did but since the amp is necessary, oh well. It did shock me how easily those 1970s Schwinn Varsity-style gear levers assemblies get bent. One time I kinda fell over at very slow speed while trying to turn past a parking meter to get off the curb onto the street. The bike just barely touched the pole of the parking meter, but that was enough to bend the levers assembly where I couldn't use it. I've had to replace wheels or at least spokes from time to time too, but the gear levers assembly and rear rack have each had to be replaced at least two or three times in the past ten years.
The last time was from an accident last June 1 (2012). It was the worst accident I've had in thirty years of bicycle guitaring, and it was due to catastrophic equipment failure. The old brittle plastic of the bicycle U-lock clamp on the seat post split while I was riding and the metal U-lock instantly tangled with my pedals. (DON'T TRUST OLD PLASTIC) My face was on the ground a moment later, but on the way down my guitar body pushed against the gear shift levers leaving gouges in the front of the guitar body and also wrecking the gear shift levers assembly. The rear rack's frame split in two places.
A month later my Pignose amplifer died. I had been riding with it for ten years, and it died a month after this major crash so I think it probably was a delayed reaction to the damages from the crash. Similarly, on October 3 of last year (2012) I had the first night of a regular weekly two-hour show I have put on since then at a local coffee house. It is still going on. I didn't have a guitar stand and set Annie down to lean against a chair, but the tone knob snapped off when it barely brushed against the seat cushion of the chair. The metal pole had snapped in two, and I don't think that impact would have done it unless it was already damaged and about ready to go anyway. So that too I think was like a delayed result of the June 1 crash.
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"When you ride over sharps, you get flats!"--The Bicycling Guitarist, May 13, 2008
12 Apr 2013, 8:00 pm
