Of labored breath

 At the risk of sounding like an endorsement, I've been using a couple Huffy branded accessories and really liking them. For a couple years, I've had two of the same handlbar bag from them. One, I was given by a friend, and the other I actually bought, but keep in mind, that was from a thrift store. I'm a big fan of handlebar bags of all sizes, but those two are pretty much goldilocks just-right-sized for me, and one has been living on the front of my primary errand bike, so it's starting to show the degredation of a Huffy product that is actually used. Luckily, I have a spare for when that seam truly gives up. 

The other Huffy product is on what is likely the nicest bike I own, my Zanconato cyclocross bike. Mike built it for me when I was in my late 20s, when, of course, I thought I'd be a racer forever, so I had him build it as a true race bike with no water bottle cage mounts. Silly kid, but luckily, years ago, in the dump, I found a Huffy with their proprietary water bottle and frame mount. The bottle has T-slot to match the T of the "cage", which is an amazingly secure interface, and I've never lost the bottle. Huffy is, of course, cheap, so rather than add the expense of brazed cage mounts, the "cage" is a plastic clamp, nice and gentle on the Lamborghini pearl paint that Mike described as, "kinda a chick color," so I'd told him to go for it, sight unseen.

The pearl is much more pink in sunlight.

Alas, cross races often see gray days.

If I was having so much fun with the parts, why not try a whole bike? You may recall some of my adventures with the department store Schwindle, and some amazement at how not-bad cheap bikes are becoming. Huffy, however, has a tradition to uphold, or maybe hold underwater until it stops breathing, and they take that seriously. On my errands in Amherst yesterday there was an unsecured, kickstand parked bike where I joined the rail trail, and it was still there hours later when I returned, so I stopped to take a look and saw a Huffy, with 29 inch wheels, and no disc brakes. Intriguing, and seemingly, left for the taking, but without a "free" sign, I wanted to be more sure someone wasn't counting on it's undesirability as a theft deterrent, so I left it and made a note to return in the morning.

Shocker, it waited there through the rainy night for me, and while someone did take the bungy that kept the loose kickstand from rattling, and removed, then dropped the saddle and seatpost once they realized it was a steel pin 25.4mm diameter of little value, it was still complete, and even freshly rinsed! I unbolted the front wheel, clamped the fork into the front hub strapped to my rear rack, bungied (I bring my own) the wheel on top, and rolled for home with my new ward piggybacked out aft.

I'm confident this was clean up, 

not stealing.

My primary wants were the tires, rims, and tubes, but having eyeballed it as more closely my size than just the generic Huffy "adult", I figured I'd at least take a lap around the yard on it once we were home. Of course, it's a department store Huffy, which, in addition to questionable design merits, means the person who assembled it was probably paid per piece assembled, with the only quality control metric being, "Are all the parts there?" As anyone who has wrenched in a bike shop knows, these bikes often come in brand new because they aren't working and need a full, costly tune-up that negates any box store cost savings.

With this bike, I'm having the full true Huffy experience, so before riding even a foot, I...

Removed the loose crank to align it...

...tightened the loose bottom bracket cup

3 full turns!!!

 With the proper Huffy repair tools

 (although really, it should be a BFH: 

Bigger F___ing Hammer)...

...marveled at the damage 

from riding a loose crank, 

even a steel one...

...and tightened the brakes that were too loose 

by even my standards.

It must've been all the pad wear.

Yes, sarcasm.

Hey, all the parts were there!

I even set the height and tweaked the angle 

of the not awful saddle.

It rides. It's faster than walking. I think I'll have some more fun with it before scavenging, although I pretty quickly scrapped the thought of riding it to Connecticut tomorrow for the holiday and the next day's turkey burner NEMBA ride. Now some more highlights to elicit heavy breathing.

Huffy must be ridden fully cross chained

As found

The COW 

(Couch On Wheels) 

came with a proper upholstery tag!

I just wish it had instructions

how to ride a manual!

I expect I'll kinda not hate these tires.

Horizontal dropout=single speed conversion

I needn't even try to make cheap shifting work!

For the Dead Kennedys fan:

When you kill the poor bike buyer, 

you get a holiday here!

And yes,

 I fixed the loose kickstand by removing it.

I think that's the most pictures I've ever posted of a bike. Maybe I do care.