Bicycles, a lot of them.

A few years ago, while recovering from a broken arm, I had a rather disturbing realization. At the time I was staying at my dad's house, and just the act of going up the half flight of stairs to get to the front door left me winded.

Something, had, to be done.

I bought myself a bicycle. A Dawes LT1000.

I'll go more into the story of where that lead, but since we're talking the machines. I'll stick to the machines.

Building the Dawes was only somewhat satisfying, as I didn't get to really build it. I decided I wanted a lighter bike, as usual that caused me to scour ebay. From a pile of parts, I created this:

A Nerobro special, 2006 Fetish Penna, built from ebay parts. It's 17.25lbs. And I think I built it for $900.

That wasn't enough though. I'd heard all about "steel is real" and "steel rides better". The internet convinced me. I needed a steel bike. I went and bought a lightly broken Univega Viva Sport. I replaced the RD, a set of new cables, and tires on it.

I did such a good job that my sister took it. I really wanted downtube shifters anyway.

So I bought a replacement. A 1991 Univega Viva Sport.

She didn't take that one from me.

Three years ago I took up riding track. After riding a complete season on rental bikes, I decided I had earned a bike of my own. I bought a Dawes SST-AL.

After a year at the track, I still had my race license. I did some research, and found my road/track license also qualifies me for cyclocross racing. I broke out my 1996 Iron Horse MT200, and threw some parts on it to make it lighter and fit me better.

I really wanted to have a bike to carry on the train, so I could chose to not ride the bus to work. I bought a Razor Squeeze.

Amazingly, I've never actually taken it on the train. And I've owned it for most of a year now. There will be some blog posts on it later as I modify it to be more suitable to taking it on the Metra.

I wanted to try building a bike that's lighter than my penna. My original goal was 15lbs for $500. It looks like I won't make that goal. But I can definitely get under 15lbs. The frame I bought was a 1992 Trek 2100. Here it is in "lets just get it rolling" form.

Most recently up a Mercier Nano. I did a bit of a review of it earlier in the week, but just in case...

And in the process I ended up with my third DT shifting bike.

So that's my current stable. There's another half dozen bikes that have been sold, flipped, or otherwise have left me. If there's a bike in particular you want a write up on... comment or e-mail.