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Seward had held Inez until she had calmed down. When he had finally let go, he had told her that she needed to get some rest, and that there was a cot in the back room. And like anyone else trying to recover from shock, he found comfort in routine. He had opened the shop just in time for the morning meeting of The Greenway Collation, a group of concerned bike enthusiasts that helped keep the city’s longest stretch of bike path clean and safe. They also petitioned the city council on a regular basis that was responsible for the construction of a hundred new miles of converted railway and side-of-street paths over the last couple of years.
The Greenway Collation had made Seward’s Custom Cycle Repair & Junk Yard one of their home bases. Seward was member. The shop was only a block away from one of The Greenway’s on-off ramps in Uptown area. It was also located across the street from a couple of coffee joints and a hipster bowling ally and restaurant that was popular with the single-speed and fixed-gear crowds. The synergy of the neighborhood worked.
Seward noted that their ride was going to be light today. There were only three cyclists sifting through parts. When the ride was this light, he’d typically close the shop and join in, but today was very different. He had Inez to worry about, but he needed to clear his head, and he felt like a ride. He wrote a quick note for Inez and taped it where she would find it, on the handle bars of her Big Dummy.
“I’ll ride along today.”
Jason, a single-speed fanatic that road a self-constructed grasshopper green road bike with white tires and handle grips said, “Great, where really short today.” He looked around the shop. “What are you going to take out?”
“My chopper.” Seward pointed to a tomato red cruiser with tires that were big enough to support a small motorcycle. The frame was elongated and based onKustom Kruisers’ Sick Daddy, but with the modifications that Seward had added, it looked more like Tetsuo’s low-rider motorcycle from the animated film Akira.
“Cool.” Jason asked, “Do you think that you’ll be able to keep up with that monster?”
“I just added new cruiser hubs that store some of energy though friction, and then they release it when I stop peddling. They’ll keep me going about twenty miles an hour, so the question is, can you keep up?”
“You’re cheating. Where’s the fun it that?”
“Hey, these babies will have more average people commuting to work on bikes this year and next. They’re worth it.” Seward pushed his bike to the door. “Besides not everyone can be as cool and hip as you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
The rider of an elite road bike, dressed in all the proper clothes said, “Jason, you’re kind of an ass.”
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