In the Beginning...

In the beginning, a young woman named Jen wanted a road bike. She lived in Portland and one fine day she woke up and turned her comput... okay, enough with the third person crap.

I bought a bike off Craigslist this morning. It wasn't my dream bike. My dream bike is a Peugeot Tour bike in black with little orange rainbows. I want it in my size and I want it in a men's style bike. This doesn't exist, I've decided. Or at least, I can't find one in my size at my price (dirt cheap).

After looking for months for the *perfect* bike and not finding it, I finally decided to just build my dream bike from the ground up. Well, that plan had problems too. I don't know how to work on, fix, build, or really do anything with a bike.

So, I decided to find a middle ground. I searched Craigslist for an old bike that didn't cost too much, that I could fix up to look and ride like I wanted. I still wanted a man's bike, but I wanted it to be my size.

Then, this morning, I found her. She is *gold*, manly, a 10 speed, and isn't a Peugeot. That means I can strip the paint to my hearts desire and not feel like I'm defacing an artifact. It's a Dayton, which I've never even heard of and apparently doesn't exist online. (But it does in England; it says so on my new bike.) She was $75, which isn't a small amount of cash for me, mind you. But, I found some FRAMES for at least $50 clams and for a mere $25 more, I got the rest of the bike! AND, the frame fits me. Yay. I'm 5'8" by the way.

So, I've decided to repaint her, keeping her gold though, because I love that color. I've decided to do all the work myself, and fix her up to be a fine city bike that I can use every day from school to work to the bars and back home again.

Thus begins the saga of GOLDIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, I'll talk about my process and the steps and everything I encounter here so if some other girl wants a Goldie for her very own, she can do it herself and feel proud!