10.11.2009

the one, the only, chopper carl

today is a cold cold day, and i cannot believe how quickly the so-called summer has swept me by. its one of those days you are happy to have a so-called significant other. i can't believe its been nearly a month since i updated this so-called blog. things have been hectic, the way i like em, but time it has transpired and the season has changed. another change worth noting is that i won't be typing so-called anymore. not sure that hyphenized marriage of an iconic staple of sarcasm really is worth ever using in any event. its so-cold is more like it...ok, moving along.

today is time to set up my new bike shop. i recently transplanted from wicker park to riverwest, and my new work shop is much like it sounds, a newark shop, yes, as in jersey, the armpit of america. i woudn't say that metaphor is totally accurate....but in terms of the luxurious 14' ceilings and obese floor space at the shop in wicker park, well you get the analogy. now i clock my head at least once every two days on a pipe, light bulb, what have you. i was this close to having a bike repair stand in it today. wasn't as hawkish in my craigslist pursuits as i've been in the past. that woulda put this place one up.

its not so bad - my new basement shop puts a ceiling on what was becoming an absurdly excessive collection of bicycles that spent more time on a hook then carrying people from one destination to the next. and that isn't right; this move, this downsizing, its well timed. i am happy to enter a new cycling community, and milwaukee (i am told) has a fabulous one.

i started this post however, to commemorate chicago, and offer a veritable shout out to my man, carl harris. how do i know him? where did i meet him? i am about to lay it down for you. what does he go by? why is he such an influence to you bikeith? hold on just a minute, i am getting there. where does he eat? what does he drive? just tell me!

carl straight up is your typical bike savvy character. and by typical, i mean typical in the way that his love for bicycles is indigenous. typical in the sense that like any bike savvy character, his life somehow revolves in a very surprisingly functional manner in and around bicycles. carl harris plays the organ to make ends meet. when i met him, he was also volunteering at west town bikes. he is atypical in his personality, goofy, perhaps, but in a signature kind of way. he's the guy who wears a vietnamese hat cycling, pedaling like an asshole on an abnormally high geared carbon y frame, loudly slurring "i wanna pony" as he slowly passes complete strangers in fast motion.

he goes by chopper carl and he embraces the moment and the child within himself. he used to drive an 18 wheeler. now he can be found pulling a trailer with a soundsystem on a bike sharing mixes with the cyclists of critical mass. carl has taught me a lot about bikes, and embraced my noviceness in the cycling realm in a natural fashion. some days we would do a lake shore drive ride and take a trip to the golden nugget. other days he would offer a hint on how to repack a hub as i feverishly tried to get my bike back together before closing time at tinker town.

for whatever reason - likely its because i began to accumulate enough tools and knowledge - i began to see carl less and less. we'd exchanged some voicemails, and a few invitations, but i realized it had been over a year since i'd seen him. finally, he came over a couple weeks ago, we spent a couple hours catching up with each other, i gave him a bikeith shirt. i remembered what great company he was, all light-hearted, though still intent as ever should the name HED 3 come up in conversion. minutes after he took off, it occurred to me that i'd missed a perfect opportunity to get a photograph of my old friend and mentor wearing my logo.

as i was unlocking my front door last monday afternoon, the day i would leave chicago for good, i heard a familiar voice mutter, "nice bike." you can imagine my delight, when i turned around to carl applying the brakes of his self-titled trek. he stopped in for a drink, and this time i remembered to take a picture. i told him how i wished i would have gotten one with the bikeith shirt on. a few shots later, he unbuttoned his button up with the slightest smirk on his face, bearing my bar code.

happenstances like this, and the idiosyncrasies of bike savvy characters like chopper carl, have as much to do with my fondness for cycling as the pleasure of riding. oh yeah, this man drives a saab.