A Jaguar At The Beach

Ever since my arrival in Lund I've been seeking out a bike. It's one of the reasons I wanted to live in Europe. No more driving. The city is packed with bikes. There literally is a bike for every person. So, being a bike dude as I am I have been jealous of all the fun everyone has been having on their two wheelers. After doing some market research and visiting the local bike shops I concluded several things.

1) Swedish people are far more into fashion that function when it comes to their iron horses.
2) Men and women ride women's' bikes. (Now, it should be noted that I once had a woman's bike in Fort Collins. It was a green retro schwin cruiser. It was one of my favorite rides as it was so easy to get on and off of. A classic 'pub crawl' trolley, but not much good for a long haul.)
3) The bikes here cost a fortune if you are going to buy them new, so you have to hit the secondary market bar none!

I had budgeted $200 for a bike before I left the states. I was hoping that for that price I could get a decent single speed or fixed gear messenger bike. (I've attached a picture below for reference) Similar to the rig I left behind in the states (only this one would have brakes). It was the euro dream for me. I even brought pedals and a cat eye to soup it up. A swanky little 'fixie' that could pedal me to the Tour De' France in July when my program was over. Reality check, since I still don't have a visa, and since I'm doing this whole thing on a shoe string budget, I should probably just let my euro dream ice a bit and get something to get me to and from class (at least until the Swedish government kicks me out of the country). After searching the town it became apparent that if I wanted to own a messenger style single speed I was going to either have to ship it from the states or fly to London and hack one off a delivery boy. Both options seemed expensive.


I happened to catch wind of a bike auction that was happening yesterday on campus. My Manhattan buddy Justin told me about it and we made plans to go. I figured for sure I would find something there that I could pick up for around 500 sek ($85 bucks). We stood patiently in the rain with 7,000,000 other people all waiting for the doors to the 'bike barn' to open. When they did I was heart broken. Everything in the shed was total garbage. Pedals missing, brake cables laying loose, rust on the chains, a sad sad sight I tell you. Justin shared my disappointment and we both walked back to our side of town with our tails between our legs. Later in the evening I received some info on the auction from a gal who stayed to witness the sale. She said people were paying crazy prices for pieces of junk. 700 - 800 sek for bikes that didn't even pedal. I decided my original price point of $200 (1200 sek) was probably closer to market value if I wanted something that I didn't have to tinker with to get on the road.

Despite the lack luster auction, as usual, I had a back up plan. I found a flyer on campus earlier in the day with two offers for bikes for sale. I sent an email to the one lad after the auction disappointment and we agreed to meet this morning to see if we couldn't make a deal. He showed up with the chariot a bit past 11:00. It was a standard issue swedish designed uni-sex bike. I purchased it on the spot for 1000 sek. I negotiated a bike lock and got him to throw in a bag of bananas (no joke) which he just had purchased at the open air market.

As I began to pedal towards home I became more confident in my purchase and felt as though I had found a good deal. That won't however, keep me from listing it at a higher price immediately to see if I can turn a quick buck while the market is HOT! But for now, the bike is mine.

Upon arrival at my place I decided I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather in the city today. It has rained every day since I have been here so some sun sounded nice. I decided that I wanted to get out and see the countryside a bit and clear my head from the week that was. I decided to head due west to the sleepy little coastal village of Lomma. I grabbed the bike, filled a water bottle and hit the open road. Now, back home I can ride my racing bike around 30km/hour with little effort. My fixed gear I ride around 20km/hour with the same effort. The journey to Lomma is a 10km trip according to Google maps. That being said, even at a snails pace it shouldn't take more than 40 minutes to get there. Well, that was on my old bikes. I forgot to calculate the weight of this rig into my calculations. An hour and ten minutes later I still had yet to see the ocean. There was a strong head wind blowing right into my face and I was pretty confident I could have ran faster than I was peddaling. Argh!

Anyways, a little while later I finally laid eyes on the ocean. I found a nice little pier to sit on and watch the waves come in. It was a lovely conclusion to a tough journey. I sat on the dock for an hour and read while the wind from the sea blew through my hair (kind of blew through my hair I guess as I haven't showered since Tuesday and it's a bit of a birds nest). While I was sitting there I watched a handful of sail boats come into the harbor, and I even got to see a couple of topless sunbathers (apparently this is the norm in Sweden). Below are some picture of my bike on the pier. Can you spot the bridge to Denmark? How about the spiral tower in Malmo Sweden?