Regimented Wrench
There’s a song by Paul Baribeau called Hard Work.
Took two hours to wake up today
took two hours to wake up today
took a half an hour to get into the shower
the shower took an hourthe hard work helps the time go by
hard work helps the time go by
Lately I’ve been thinking about the regular schedule I’ve set for myself; I’ve been thinking about it in terms of my bicycle. Six days a week it’s a short and well versed commute to school or work and the same jaunt home ten hours later. When I can wake well rested and it’s dry outside, I try to ride through the park for maybe an hour before the day really begins. Long rides get postponed until Sunday comes around, and longer rides fill my imagination by Monday afternoon.
Sleep, eat, ride, school, work, eat, ride.
And this regularity is good, I look forward to it.
On a different scale, I’ve been considering what I want to do with this like of bike. I’ve developed a strong loyalty to the shop I’m wrenching at currently, along with a lot of friendship and admiration for my coworkers. I can say I wouldn’t mind working at Pullins Cyclery as long as I live in Chico. After I graduate though, I think I’d like to explore some.
NAHBS really reinforced my feelings that I’d like to try my hand as a framebuilder, but at the same time it struck me how sufferable such an endeavor might be. Less than $2,500 can buy tools for building lugged steel frames, but the investment of time and energy required to develop the necessary skills prior to this is much harder to calculate. Ron Sutphin, president of the United Bicycle Institute in Oregon, estimates one out of twenty graduates of UBI’s frame building class make a significant portion of their income framebuilding, and that fewer than one in a hundred succeed making a solo career of it.
And so I worry, as I am wont to do. Maybe I won’t have an eye or hand for framebuilding, maybe I won’t have the frugality or wherewithal, maybe I won’t have the salesmanship, maybe I won’t have the ambition or passion.
But I might. As long as there’s no rush to test my metallurgy, these worries weigh less than the air in my tires. For now I’m comfortable with the prospect of wrenching for years to come, riding regularly, and watching the time go by.