I recently purchased a fixed-gear bike (yes, indeed, I purchased a fixie). In fact, BeiBei and Allan did too! I opted for the 2011 Mercier Kilo TT Pro (thus the title of this entry), BeiBei opted for the Mercier Kilo Stripper (yes, we are milking the name of that bike and basking in the plethora of jokes that can be had regarding BeiBei and her Stripper), and Allan opted for the Windsor Timeline. We ordered these bikes via BikesDirect per my cousin’s recommendation and various online recommendations for best places to purchase beginner bikes.
To our delight, all three of our bikes arrived on Monday; thus, we had a bike assembly party!
Pictured above is my bike in the middle of the assembly process. Pardon the photo quality, as this photo was taken with my cell phone. Assembling the bikes took longer than expected. Needless to say, it was great once we were done (or mostly done, that is. More on that later.)
I must admit I’m beginning to like my bike more and more as I look at it, even though this wasn’t initially the bike I had set my eyes on. For some strange reason, the brake cables that came with my bike seem super long. As you can see from the photo, I totally ran my brake line along the diagonal and up the back of the frame because it just seemed too long to run across the top of the frame. Obviously, this is not correct. In addition, my tires still need to get pumped.
Luckily, thanks to Yelp, I happened to come across this small bicycle shop near my house called Lakewood Cyclery. It has received great reviews and has been in operation for many, many years. Even better, reviewers have referred to the Asian man that runs the shop as the “Mr. Miyagi” of bikes. How cute!
I love the idea of little neighborhood shops with a long history and regular customers. Indeed, that is exactly what this shop seems to be. Before heading off to work, Allan and I took his bike over to see “Mr. Miyagi” to get a full tuning. The shop is quaint and filled with various bicycle parts and used bicycles. Upon entering, there was a couple of old men, who seemed to be regular customers, chatting it up with “Mr. Miyagi” (okay, his real name is Ben) and checking out the used bikes. You can immediately tell this shop has been there for quite a while, but that’s all part of the charm. Hopefully the service being done on Allan’s bike turns out to be awesome, at only $29.99 for bike tuning. I’ll be dropping my bike off tomorrow to pay a visit to Ben as well. Hopefully we can get this whole brake thing sorted out and make sure my bike is well and ready to go. I can’t wait to ride it!
The ride was relatively easy, but tiring nonetheless. It was great to be rewarded (thanks, Allan!) in the form of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream upon arrival at Shoreline Village!
