one week ago today there was pyrrhic victory; today, vengence

I am still recovering from last week’s battle with the Acura, yet footing in the war against the gas guzzling beasts of the concrete jungle has continued to show positive advance. While the mourning period has yet to wane and being mired in police reports and insurance deals has done little to quell the sense of loss for my beautiful Peugot, a wonderfully corroded and multi-colored machine of two wheeled beauty has appeared and offered itself as an honorable replacement. In short, I have a new bike. Its a PUCH CAVETTE- an Austrian cycle from the mid 80′s. I found it this weekend, fell in love, paid too much for it and brought it home for some mechanical tweaking.

This is me doing the mechanical tweaking:

once tweaked and ready a baton passing ceremony was held, and the Peugot gave over her seat to the PUCH. Here is a view from the ceremony. It was beautiful and moving.

Most importantly, it was on the PUCH (pronounced like poohk, with a strong H sound on the end before the k sound) that I went right back to the battlefield this morning and cycled straight through the intersection where I had been plowed into exactly one week to the day before.

This is the intersection, taken from inside a friend’s jeep over the weekend:

Sucker intersection. I now own the corner of North Capitol and Mass. Ave.

Vengence is mine.