We have some catching-up to do, don’t we?

July 12: My first ride on the new bike is like a dream. It’s fast, nim­ble, smooth, and incred­i­bly light! Got my first com­pli­ment after just 5 min­utes of rid­ing. The tem­po­rary stripe of black spray­paint and jury-rigged rear brake are tem­porar­ily for­got­ten, but I can’t wait to get every­thing fixed up.

July 16: Stripped the bike back down and returned it to my frame­builder, who will repair the mis-placed brake bridge and re-paint while I’m on vacation.

July 21: My frame­builder decides that low­er­ing the brake bridge will be too dif­fi­cult. Instead, he will buy me a new pair of longer-reach brakes. This is frus­trat­ing because I already spent $200 on brakes that match the dark gray color scheme of the other com­po­nents. The new ones will be heav­ier and are only avail­able in sil­ver. Fine, I give up!

July 27: Back from vaca­tion. Bike is at the paint shop await­ing paint.

August 3: Await­ing paint.

August 10: Await­ing paint. Appar­ently the painter is back­logged with com­mit­ments to a vin­tage motor­cy­cle show.

August 13: Bike is not ready for my company’s all-hands bike ride. Instead I ride a tan­dem with my boss (which is actu­ally pretty fun as kick­ing every­one else’s ass becomes a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort).

August 20: Frame deliv­ered! The painter must have got­ten word of my impa­tience, as he took one last oppor­tu­nity to tease me:

Con­tin­ued in part 8…