leather bike accessories

Jessica has promised before that this won’t become a bike blog, and she’s absolutely right, because I know nothing about bikes. My bike once belonged to Allen’s mother, and Allen does all the work on it. It’s not that I’m not interested in working on the Schwinn, but Allen is good at it, enjoys it, and makes it awfully easy for me to sit inside sipping lattes while he changes tubes with numb fingers.

What I am good at, bike-wise, is imagining how pretty it could be - if only I didn’t personally need gears and brakes, if only the frame were powder-coated a beautiful cream, if only it had a bunch of honey-colored leather accessories. So Allen gave me a gorgeous Brooks B67s saddle for Christmas (and told me, very sensitively, that he’d chosen the model for those with wider hips). I’ve been working on accessories to match.

bike and box

I'm a biker. I'm a bike enthusiast. Boston is a great city for biking and I do so year-round. I'm proud to say that this November I'll be 3 years without a car (and mind you, about 9 months of that was in car-dependent Atlanta)!  But this blog is not the place for me to go on about how biking is the cheapest and fastest way to get around the city. How it's great for the environment and great for your body. How it keeps you in touch with the weather system and keeps you from parking fees, tow fees and time wasted looking for a parking spot. It isn't how all of the coolest people you'll meet ride bikes. So I'll just talk about my gear and how to put a box on the back. 

After the jump: details on gear, instructions for the box, gallery of love for my bike and a look-what-you-can-do-with-your-broken-box. Lots of photos.