Did I Mention...?

I don't know nothing 'bout fixin' no bicycles.

I mean, I'm confortable with tools.  I don't mind getting greasy.  But I have no idea of the subtleties of building bikes.  

So I've been stalking the tubes of the Interwebs where regular folks go and ask questions of the cycling community.  And I've come to a startling conclusion: these sites are mostly filled with jerks.  I don't mean your average, run-of-the-mill jerks.  I mean Class-A, first-rate a**holes.  

Not all of them.  There are some very knowledgeable, helpful individuals.  Some.  But mostly, there are a bunch of self-important, ill-informed poseurs who seem to gain great personal satisfaction by pointing out how superior they and their bikes are.

That's beyond sad.

I made a choice when I started The Jasper Project not to turn this bike into a chic bike, the kind of bike that would be secretly coveted* by some dude in Wicker Park in skinny jeans and fake glasses, sitting in a cafe, thoughtfully drinking his PBR as I rode by.

*Secretly coveted, because no hipster worth his or her salt would ever explicitly covet something.  That would not be cool.

It won't be a fixie, with 12" long straight bars and a $2K wheelset.  It's going to be a practical, old-school upright city bike.  The kind of bike that says to you, "Climb on.  Let's go for a ride. Remember how much fun that is?"  It will be a bike that, hopefully, goes on many family rides with wifey and my two boys.  It will carry picknicks.  It will tow third wheels.  It will smile, just like Jasper always would.