bike love

when my husband and i were both unemployed, we had a bit of a tradition; we would go to happy hour at don jose's, get a couple of margaritas and then go to the goodwill next door. one night i happened upon this:

a bike with fur on it! i debated whether i should buy her or not and eventually decided i wasn't ready to shell out the 30 bucks.

we got home and she was all i could talk about. i was kicking myself that i hadn't bought her. i could see so much potential! my husband contacted a friend of ours who frequents goodwill (to find good buys and resell) and asked him to please a. try and talk the manager down to 20 bucks and b. please purchase it for us first thing in the morning if it was still there and we'd be by to get it. well, he got there the next morning and she was still there! he even talked them down to 20 bucks! we met him at goodwill and he had to roll this pink furry bike out to the parking lot for us getting made fun of by other patrons in the store. thanks, brian! i owe you one.

we got her home and she was covered in rust, had 2 flat tires and her fur was faded badly, but i loved her already. we found another beach cruiser for my husband on craigslist and over the next few weeks we spent hours wire-brushing, sanding, painting and working on our bikes. i painted her body a beautiful teal and sprayed all her other parts with chrome spray paint.

now i just had the issue of the faded fur. i wanted to use rit dye, but realized rit only works on cotton, not polyester, hhmm. i did some research and found a cos-play girl that suggested using sharpies. i bought 8 sharpies and got to work "coloring" the fur. it was working ok, but the color was too purple, i wanted it to stay bright cotton candy pink. i tried washing some of the color out and re-coloring it with a different color sharpie and it worked, but it took forever and i wasn't sure i'd be able to match all of it to each other. so, nix that idea. i decided to just replace the fur altogether. i checked every fabric store in town and no one sold pink fur, what gives? i swear i remember seeing it in stores before. oh well, that's what ebay's for, right? i found a place and ordered some. i then ripped of all the old fur and went to town cutting and spray-gluing the new fur on. it was worth it, it looked wonderful! now all i needed was a "have you combed your bike today" bumper sticker, hehe.

she now has a new paint job, pink fur, pink chain, pink lock, pink bell and pink and white checkered side mirror. i get compliments on her every time i ride her. she's been a good bike. i'm glad i went back for her. <3 <3 <3

update on bike love... she's been stolen. my heart is sad to think that after all the love i put into her, she's probably going to be stripped down and sold for drug money. she was more than a bike, she was a distraction from our crummy life at the time and a ray of hope for our future. i'll miss you, beautiful!