Surly Bikes
I cleaned out the basement workshop last night.
Now, I'm not the kind of person that you'd ever call organized or tidy. I was the guy working at the bike shop eating pizza with Phil Wood grease drizzle while perched on the corner of the filthiest tool and crap-covered bench in the back room. That's how I still roll. I don't see it as being a personality defect like some might, but I will tell you what I do know, when the bench is clean and everything is put away in its place, I feel real good.
The sheer breadth of possibilities that exist when your workbench is clean is a good feeling. I might finally fix the headset on that old road bike. I might start work on the bullmoose bar 80s MTB clone 26" wheel LHT that has been sitting in the back of my mind like an excellent bad idea. But, more likely, I'll take the guts from the toilet that hasn't been flushing right down there to tinker on. I might even fix it. The Boy and I will probably drill holes in stuff for fun - especially now that I actually found my box of drill bits underneath all the accumulated piles. He's also taken to flattening cable end crimps with a hammer on the floor. We'll see what we can make out of those.
Sitting back with my can of Old Milwaukee surveying the cleanliness and possibilities at the bench also made me realize that this is not just a place where I do stuff. My workspace walls and pegboard are covered not just with tools and supplies, but it's where I keep a lot of reminders and artifacts from my past. There's the Kytoto street map that helped me negotiate an alleycat race there back in Ought Seven. Hanging above the headset spacers is a note from my wife from very early in our relationship. It's gushy and perfect. There's a black and white baby picture of my older brother near the screwdrivers that just makes me laugh - its ornate frame a contrast to the vacuous look on his tiny mug. Speaking of mugs! Over there is the Leeche Cheats at Majong mug that Andy had made for the Surly geeks. I broke it a few months back, but it was there at the bench where I breathed enough life back into it so that it could remain at least a memento. There's a Cars-r-Coffins water bottle (smells used!), my Old Style tin platter (meant to give that to Johnny), a roll of Surly toilet paper made by our Japanese distributor Rie. Just genius. It proved once and for all that she knows Surly better than Surly knows Surly.
Under the bench is a toolbox I've had since I was 16. It's covered with old decals that make me pine for the days of downtube friction shifters and fast bikes made from steel tubes. Festooning its bashed up skin (among many others) is a Richey Logic fork decal and a sticker depicting Andy Hampsten winning the Giro from a roll of Cinelli bar tape. How can bar tape like that NOT make you go faster? It may be some sort of blasphemy, but that old Craftsman box is where most of my auto-specific tools now live - feeler gagues from when I used to adjust the valves on my air-cooled VWs, an oil filter strap wrench, a spark plug socket. Doesn't matter though. It still takes me back.
An old set of speakers sit like bridge trolls under the bench. They were my Dad's old Fischers from the early 60s and, even though they're beat to hell, they make my nine record vinyl collection sound really nice. "Dad! Play Tiger by the Tail again!" You bet I will.
I'm a big fan of cool spaces that people create for themselves or for friends or customers or whatever it might be. There's always a story there. The story of my little workshop in my little house is that it's cluttered with possibilities - and memories that might otherwise escape me if I didn't have something concrete to look at. My Evil Cycling cap smells pretty bad, but it looks good next to my B Rose "Have a Seat Brother" saddle cover.
-Skip