Garage Rats Anonymous

I love cluttered garages. Basements are my second favorite, but only when I feel like being in total isolation. Basements are a great place to escape the family, because usually they don't like being down there long.
You can also hear their footsteps approaching better than in the garage, so you can hide your evil-doing faster.

Since you are below all the activity, you have greater control, as you are almost forgotten. Lofts and attics never worked for me, people were always shouting up the stairs, demanding things. It's a lot cooler in the basement in the summer, another huge advantage.


In the garage, however, you can open the door to the world, and let the sun in. It's a free market. An open garage is like a Shakespearean stage on a saturday.

Pets and kids come and go. There are metallic banging noises and the smell of two-stroke gasoline.

You can keep an eye on the grille while you work. A cold beer in the garage is far more righteous than a beer in the basement.

The garage is, as we all know, an American icon. Many excellent inventions were born in home garages.

The best ones have an old paint- splattered Panasonic AM/FM radio on a grey metal shelf. The antenna is always missing, there's a bent up coathanger in a diamond shape in it's place. It's never really been broken, so why fix it?

Garages are where men go when they are "in their caves," when the women are on Venus, etc.

When I was a kid, our garage was always occupied by two vehicles, and there was no workbench. But I was definitely grateful to have my narrow bike-spot, next to my Mom's '74 Toyota Corolla. I put foam bumpers there so the saddle wouldn't get chewed up. My dad had a huge V-8 monster, purchased before the first "energy crisis".

To fit the thing in the garage, he used the dangling tennis ball trick, where it would hit his windshield in the exact same spot every time. Having to sit there and watch this obsession drove me insane.

I have a friend who has an addiction for "classic" or "vintage" french bikes. It's confusing because he's Italian. The Italians that I've always known have been programmed at birth to completely dismiss any non-Italian good or service as completely inferior, especially automobiles, stone objects, and weaponry.

But maybe there's some french blood in there somewhere, I forgot to ask.




I met his wife today, and mentioned I could help out to repay them for all the amazing old bike parts by straightening out the piles of frames, wheels, tires. The stuff was all over the place, like 25 bikes. He even has an Atala, which was my first Italian road bike. I loved that bike, but I outgrew it around age 13.

His bike is a different color, but seeing this gave me some childhood flashbacks for a second. This bike seems to be ridden occasionally, then stripped of its wheels and put back into the jungle-jim mix with the dusty french bikes.


These Atalas were basic imports, nothing to really brag about, but they had a cool name and the paintjobs and decals were racy as hell. When you are twelve, paintjobs are everything.

I love my ATALA!!!! Ciao, Mama!!! I would wave as I descended out the driveway to ride to school...

His wife stopped for a second, and let out a deep sigh.

"OMG, don't get me started!!! It's Dysfunctional!!!" she exclaimed in a very cute Long Island accent. "We used to be able to park TWO cars in here, I mean, jeez, like two- car garage, you know? He just doesn't get it! I wanna slap him silly!!!"

"How did this all start?" I queried.

" A few years back, they had floods in basements, OMG!!! he got tons of bikes, this is nothing! We had a yard sale and sold tons of crap, now there's like, uh, body parts, wheels and stuff all over the place, but look at my new bike he finally bought me, ain't it cute"?

She beamed with pride, and pointed to a new purple Raleigh hybrid.

I carefully strode over to the pile, with the words "body parts" ringing just slightly in my ears, like I'd expect to see a dust covered skeleton clutching a brake lever, under a pile of frames, or something truly horrifying.

Hearing the commotion, he finally emerged from the kitchen, and attempted to defend himself, but it was too late. I already had her all cranked up.

A massive argument ensued , and then I remembered today was Valentine's day, so I had better get what I needed and get the hell out.

"OMG what have I done?" I thought.

But it was obvious they totally love each other, it was all in fun, and the battle was really just an everyday sparring session. I realized that I missed those days when I used to be married. Stupid things that happen around the house was fodder for mindless entertainment.

"Yeah, we had floods, and there were bikes all over the place. I'd get like three a day.... It got so bad I...I... had to stop". He made it sound like he had to go to recovery meetings and get counseling. He twitched a little when he said it, looking off into space for a second.

I was like; "okayyyyy...uh, huh..."

Kids would occasionally appear, and politely ask permission to go to so-and so's house to do, like, uh, whatever. There was no evidence of intention of foul play or whining.

"Sure, no problem" .

I also realized that this insane addiction to bike tinkering saves him thousands of dollars. Plus, to any kid, it's so way cool to have a dad who will happily wrench up a bike for you. Many kids are also into the "retro" thing. They ride these old bikes while listening to Bob Dylan on their Ipods, text messaging each other every two minutes.

My dad couldn't be bothered with stuff like that, (the bike part I mean)
he was too absorbed in lawn care and home repairs. So a lot of my bike repair stuff is self-taught.

There is a stunning blue Motobecane cruiser waiting for the daughter to grow into it.

These days, everybody has bikes built by chinese robots. Many of the utility bikes are nice, but they've become a bit too space-age looking. And these bikes just don't look as comfortable. Now that I'm getting older, I can complain about this.

This Motobecane bike was hand made in France by factory workers who rode the same bikes to work. A girl's cruiser bike gets some serious retro-chic points for that among her peers.

The day he lets her ride it to school with a miniskirt on, however, is the true rite of passage into the anxiety of fatherhood.

So after rummaging through a bunch of wheels, I got my wheel and headed home. I was originally going to do a long ride, but ended up feeling crappy and hungry, so I went to Hometown Buffet and inhaled about 12 plates of food.

This of course made me feel depressed, bloated , and sluggish, but I was able to drag my ass out the door and get in some hill climbing and feeble intervals at Webster hill.

Hopefully my apartment will have a couple less bikes to trip over in the next week. Someday, though, I will have my garage.

Maybe I'll even get the grease stains out of the rug.... Nah.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the bikes I can, the courage to change the gear ratios and cable housings on the ones I can, toss the ones I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference."

--Bill Wilson, (as he rode across Illinois, 1938).