A Sad Tale Followed by a Tale of Woe

Prepare yourself. Make some tea. Find a comfortable place to sit.

When we were young Heroes, the only money we had was scrounged from under the couch cushions or earned at odd jobs – some odder than others. At the rate we made money it would have taken decades to make enough to buy a dream bike. For Jonathan Hero it did take decades. In the mid 2000s he finally purchased a scratched Merckx Corsa with various parts of various provenance. It did not take long for him to convince himself to send it to Joe Bell for a repaint. Thus Bluetini was born: a baby blue Corsa with Moltini decals. Soon it was outfitted with Campy Record 10.

Time passed, as it is wont to do. Jonathan and Luke loaded Bluetini and Luke’s BMC onto the top of Jonathan’s Toyota and headed south to Tucson. A few hundred miles and an epic sand storm later, Jonathan noticed the BMC flapping like a loose rope next to the passenger window. The other roof rack was empty. While Luke dealt with his carbon fiber machine, Jonathan ran 200 yards into oncoming freeway traffic to his Belgian beauty, where it lay like a road-kill deer. Seconds later the Heroes were back in the car heading to Tucson with wounded bikes ensconced in the back seat. Cursory glances at the contents of the back seat seemed to indicate things were not as bad as they might have been. But cursory glances cannot be trusted. Neither bike was ruined, but neither bike was rideable.

But this was not the accident that broke the fork. At the time, Jonathan felt lucky that simply straightening the derailleur hanger fixed his bike. Jonathan did not feel lucky a few months later when he drove his car into a carport with his beautiful bicycle on the roof. Jonathan in fact felt stupid. Sometimes one can feel stupid and lucky at the same time but this was not one of those times. Jonathan desperately wants to be rid of the black fork that was generously hand made by Kimo Tanaka in Davis, California. Thank you Kimo, but Jonathan wants a square-crowned Merckx fork like the one his frame came with.

In the meantime, Jonathan built up another Merckx using Bluetini’s Record 10 components; this has been a loyal steed. And now, finally, he is taking the opportunity afforded him by his unhappy accident(s) and building up the exact dream bike he would have made 30 years ago if he had only had had a job.