I went to a bike shop the other day. It's one of those community shops where they specialize in taking old donated parts and giving them new life, have a free kid's bikes program and are super low pretension. I brought a bunch of old parts to donate and they offered to give me the old parts I wanted without me asking. That kind of place. It's basically a used bookshop but for bike parts.
While I was leaving one of the mechanics came up and said he had something cool to show me. He looked just like a typical bike mechanic, grease stained hands, a week's worth of facial hair, etc. His stutter continued through our interaction.
What he had to show me was some new brakes on his mountain bike. They were colour matched with part of the frame and other components.
Something between his stutter, quiet pride, and complete authenticity blew me away. We're so irony poisoned that it's been weeks, and I'm still thinking about how envious I am of someone taking that much happiness from something so small and simple.
