Frankencycle

One of the things that I love about Freiburg is the fact that it's very much an old university town, and all that that entails. Think about it: lots of poor students, and campuses spread all over the place. Add in a pretty much flat landscape and you get to conclusion that the rest of the population arrived at quite a while ago - namely, that bicycles are a really good idea.

Bikes and I don't go together that well though, I have to say. I think it goes back to an incident I had when I was about 9 or 10. I won't go into details here, but let's just say that the end conclusions that we can draw are:

1. El J and bikes are ok;
2. El J and inanimate objects are ok;
3. Inanimate objects and bikes are ok;
4. El J, bikes and inanimate objects are a really bad combination.

So, apart from a brief incident in Berlin earlier this year when I was visiting Jo that involved us riding a bike to the local supermarket that freaked me out due to all the traffic, it's been quite a while since I've gotten on a bike. However, upon starting at Freiburg it was immediately suggested to me that I should really really get myself a bike because it is the best way to get around town. And that's true - everything here is pretty much set up for bike riders - there are bike stands everywhere. So, in true El J fashion I decided that I was an adult, that I knew the laws of Physics and that I should, should be able to handle bike riding in a city where bikes are so common that cars will stop for them (yes, it's true and mildly disturbing the first couple of times).

The institute has a guest bicycle which I was able to borrow - much nicer than having to shell out at the very beginning on something that I don't know that much about. However, the guest bike is really small in comparison to normal bikes - I could easily put both my feet on the ground while stopped, and the wheel diameter was about 60% of normal bikes. Even the friends that I have made here were paying me out about it, as only the Germans can ;) Though it wasn't until one of the volleyball guys hopped on my bike that I realised how silly I must look: "You look like an idiot. Do I look that much of an idiot?" Ah, from the mouths of babes the truth is spoken. I couldn't help myself from saying it though - but then subtlety has never been my strong point.

Luckily for me, the institute also has a bit of the 2 wheeled equivalent of an elephant's graveyard. The wrecks were offered to me for the taking, and because I had no experience with bikes at all, one of the guys offered to reconstruct a bike out of all the bits that were ok for the very cheap price of a couple of beers.

So fast forward to a couple of days later and I then had myself a nice new shiny (well, slightly rusted) set of wheels. I told one of my Sydney friends, Brian, about it and he christened it the Frankencycle, which, I think, as a name works pretty well. So that's what I've been referring to it as ever since. And now it seems to have caught on ... now the whole institute refers to me and my Frankencycle.

My Frankencycle: I'm just waiting for a lighting storm until it becomes aliiiiiive.