Oldest Bike on Salt Cay

This is my bike... it's a little over 16 years old now and has seen a lot of dirt roads, rocks, acacia thorns, donkey and cow droppings and has crashed & burned twice.  Only two crashes - one in some soft sand, the bike went one way and I went the other but was able to catch myself.  The second time was up by the water transfer station by Ms. Natalie's house.

It had been raining on Salt Cay for a couple of days and the sand/salt roads were slick.  I had to get out of the house and decided to take a short bike ride up to the airport and back.  For whatever reason, on the way back I thought I'd take the side road behind Ms. Natalie's that runs along the salinas.  The mud was so slick that the bike went flying out to the right and my butt landed firmly (and jarringly!) in the mud.  To this day you can see the butt print in the road and the shorts I was wearing never came clean.  Okay, maybe not the butt print in the road...

I used to have a front basket but it disappeared a few years ago when my bike went missing for a week. That's another story.  Anyway, the back baskets were on a bike that Diver Mike had.  He got a new bike and was sad to think about his baskets going to the dump... fortunately we talked and I inherited the fantastic back baskets!  They come in handy for carrying groceries, stuff that I find along the road, my computer when I have to bike somewhere for a connection, and my towel and a bottle of water when going to North Beach or Candy's pool.

Notice the new seat?  That's new this year!!  Enrique Dickenson came up with one for me.  The old one was so rusted out that it was like riding on a board.  This new one might not be blue but I love it!  And be sure to enlarge the photo so you can check out the fenders on my bike.  The back fender is a piece of plastic that Mike found at the dump.  The front fender was so rusted this year that Mike had to attach a wire to keep the fender from rubbing against my tire and making an annoying noise.

I love my bike.  I've thought about getting one of those new fancy aluminum fat tire bikes and maybe some day I will.  The oldest bike on Salt Cay and I still have a lot of adventures left to take together. Ride on.