Thursday, June 08, 2006

Tour de Owasso

It sounds better than "The Garage Sale Tour" or anything else I could think up! I rode to Panera for coffee early this morning, then wandered through town looking at yard sales. Normally, I watch for old textbooks, especially ones on writing, literature or history, Weeks ago, I found a history text from the mid-1950s with an interesting take on the development of nuclear power and the Cold War.

Since I'm on vacation, I've been out on the Centurion fixed gear almost every morning. I ride for coffee and a newspaper. We have several new coffee shops, so I've been sampling the goodies. I had some Italian roast at Nordaggio's that was wonderful but pricey. They have gelato too, so I'll have to take Mary up there, maybe this afternoon.

Today was different since most yard sales around here are on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I found a Park PZT-1 pizza wheel! I have a good selection of Park tools, and although I've thought the pizza wheel would be nice, it's hardly an esential. When I saw this one for 50 cents, of course I couldn't pass it up. It was still in the box with an instruction sheet! When I got home, I showed Mary my prize, and told her it would look perfect up on the mantle. She rolled her eyes and I think she's suffering from what she calls "the vapors" now.

Oh, I do have an essential tool that stays in my pocket at all times, in addition to a small Victorinox 'Bijou' knife and a heavier Spyderco. It's a Schwinn centennial edition spoke wrench that's shaped like a Schwinn head tube badge and fits Japanese spokes. But it's essential function is that it doubles as a bottle opener. People who like beer should never be without a bottle opener.

Finding an old bicycle at a bargain price would be a bonus too. I have a fantasy of stumbling across a Masi or a Mercian in my size, but most are the big-box-store bicycle shaped objects. They're mostly suitable for pitching into a lake to make artificial reefs for bass habitat, but would that constitute cruel and unusual punishment for the fish?

1 Comments:

Blogger Paul Tay said...

Hey, don't be dissin' dos big-box bicycle shaped objects. They are great when da popo comes 'round for da impound. Disposable. Cheap. And, they roll, FERCHRISTSAKES.

3:05 AM  

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