July 4, 2018
The Loss of a Faithful Friend
On the 29th of September last year a car came careening around a corner in Netherlands and sent Dodie flying. Miraculously, she survived. But the same could not be said for her beloved Bike Friday New World Tourist. To be honest, it was a twisted wreck, and it was going nowhere.
Dodie loved that bike. By then, it had already carried her about 30,000 km. It was the only one, she said, she could be comfortable on. It had been custom built in Eugene, Oregon to, if you ask me, be one of the goofiest specimens around. It had a very tight cockpit, and a handlebar tube so tall I used to refer to it as the "TV antenna". But it all worked for Dodie, and it was her friend. Paradoxically, it was something they would understand in Netherlands, since it gave a very upright stance.
But now, it was 10,000 km from home, and smooshed. Dodie felt worse about this than about any of the events, including the damages done to her.
So what to do? I sent photos to the factory in Eugene. They said "Oh no, better forget it". Meanwhile Dodie met an incredibly shiny brand new bike made by Reise Mueller, in Germany. The Friday looked like toast.
It could be mailed home, but the Dutch post office had limits on the size of a parcel. I went down and made sure about the dimensions. Then the bike shop somehow compressed the Friday into the required space. They put it, ironically into a Reise Mueller box - coffin, I called it. I dragged the box to the post office, mildly surprised that the bike shop did not have one of those famous Dutch cargo bikes for me to use. The post office had no problems about the box, though they did collect over 100 euros to send it.
Amazingly, it did eventually show up back in Canada, and eventually we sent the frame to Eugene. Once they had the thing actually in hand, the factory did some kind of magic and straightened and/or remanufactured it, ultimately returning it to us. You can see why this story is now almost a year old!
With the repaired frame in hand, I re-opened the box from Netherlands and pulled out some of the other parts. The right hand side crank was amazing - all bent in. Where was Dodie's foot when that was happening? Some parts were just plain missing. But I also had some spiffy new stuff we had picked up in Eugene - like red shift and brake cables, and red water bottle holders. The time had come to put it all back together.
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