Delicious Wheels is Ross Donaldson, and he is very happy to meet you.
I — that is, Ross Donaldson (who is Delicious Wheels) — never intended to be a bicycle mechanic. Some years ago I went to Italy; I wanted to learn to sing Opera. I assumed that mine would be a European life, wearing a pea coat and a hairstyle and walking everywhere I cared to travel. My first meeting with my host mother dashed my hopes to pieces.
“Just where do we live, then?” I asked, offering my map of Florence.
“Oh, somewhere down here-ish” she announced, gesturing ambiguously six-or-so inches off the south-east corner of the city.
So I bought a bike. The salesman, an American expat like my host mother, matched my 6′5 body to an old aluminum road bike on the “this is the biggest thing we have” fitting system. We were never meant to be, that bike and I; sold to me as a 58cm bike, it turned out later to barely scrape 56 — almost 7 centimeters smaller than would be standard for a man of my height. It was too short, too small; it had no fenders, though a magnificent old wrench named Giuliano was able to fit the bike for a rack. (A feat accomplished with a drill and a hammer, among other nonstandard bike tools.) The handlebars were too narrow, the handling fussy, the seat wrong, and I could not have been more in love if Cupid himself had worked out the details.
I rode that bike almost three hours a day. After a few bad financial choices (like buying a bike), I couldn’t afford food — but I managed to scrape together the money for clip-in shoes, a helmet, and bike shorts. I screamed around the city, my peacoat forgotten, grinning into the rain and imagining German art songs about bicycles. By the time I returned state-side I was no closer to being a singer — but I had become a bicyclist.
Since then I’ve gotten a bike that fits me. I’ve wrenched in pro-shops and bike coops, and I’ve sold my car. A life-long knitter, I took to wheelbuilding like I’d found a missing part of my own mind. I weigh less and eat better than I ever have, though I certainly ride-to-eat. I live on my bike, towing a trailer of groceries or flying around the Lake with my girlfriend. It’s a wonderful life, and I’d like to find a way to share it with you.
