31. ENTIRELY NOT BRAIN SCIENCE.

Pedals and stuff. Keen followers of the Blog (that’s 6 people that I know and a whole lot of people from Russia according to the statistics supplied to me by Google) will know that I recently took possession of the frame that will form the skeleton of the bike it is my intention to build.

So I’ve now gazed lovingly at its beautifully formed lines and curves for a couple of weeks, dealt with the inevitable nagging guilt that is associated with any purchase over a certain amount that cannot be eaten, employed in the creation of income or the completion of the house and finally started to realise just how far from a complete bike it is.

As it’s not my intention to buy all the bits at once on the grounds that the arrival of it all in one chunk would possibly make my head explode in shocked horror, the question is – which bits should I get first?

The temptation here is to go for a set of wheels, purely on the grounds that the addition of said wheels would go the furthest towards making the two triangles of steel I currently have, look most like a bike in the shortest amount of time. Of course it would be a bike without a means of steering, stopping or propelling which is not much of a bike at all, but still. I eventually decided against this option on a number of grounds (besides the inability to steer/stop/propel I mean).

Firstly, it would cost a lot. Not just for the wheels, but for the fork and headset that I would also need to get to attach the front wheel to the frame. I do note that this is a cost that I will inevitably have to outlay at some point and that my reasoning here is not something I want to shine the bright light of logical thought onto. But right now, I’m having enough of an issue dealing with the reality of my expenditure up to this point so I reckon psychologically I could use a break.

Similarly, the sheer size represented by two wheels and a fork is a bit intimidating. Just the box it would no doubt arrive in would just scream ‘Oh this is fully serious now you idiot! What were you thinking?.....Moron.' I get enough of this kind of thing from actual living organisms and do not need it from an inanimate box (however large and well built) as well.

I suspect the main reason however is the hack sawing. See, an inevitable part of the attachment of the forks to the frame is the cutting of the fork tube to fit (assuming I don’t want to go for what would be a fairly absurd and impractical extreme dragster look that would entail the use of a seriously ridiculous number of spacers). And that’s not something I can afford to screw up. So I’m thinking I might get into that once I have convinced myself, even a little bit, that my mechanical aptitude is up to the task. So not right now then.

And that’s why I ended up buying this lot....

Next: What exactly ‘this lot’ is....