The Collingswood Bikeshare

Hola amigos. It's been a long time since I've rapped at you, but I've gone semi-pro, so I've been drawing/painting trading cards and working on the occasional illustration project with the time I used to spend drawing comics for free with little feedback. I do plan to finish my "Where's the Beat" comic and submit it to literary journals in hopes of getting more eyes, but publishing my progress on this blog would disqualify me from submitting elsewhere in many cases, so we'll have to wait a bit.

Long-time readers know that this blog started out as an attempt to share my combined interests in library studies and art, then it drifted more into a regular comics blog, and now I pop in once in a while to share updates on whatever projects I'm currently working on. Well, I never abandoned my library training, and now I work as a cataloger, circulation clerk and restoration specialist at one of the best special libraries in the world, the Collingswood Bikeshare.

Not the usual bike sharing program that rents out fancy-schmancy identical bikes with GPS and stuff by the hour, ours refurbishes donated adult bikes of many shapes, sizes and vintage and leases them like library books for $25/year.

With another female, I'm currently building a bike from an old road bike frame of dubious origin (though stickers indicate it was originally acquired from a Western Toy Store):

 Here I am scraping off the original layers of paint with a scraper. Later I'd switch to Zip Strip. This bike had a storied life including possible theft, judging by the paint layers -- red, original dark Bikeshare green, black spraypaing and lighter, modern Bikeshare green. This time it will be cream and blue.

Here are some before pictures:

Bikeshare brand builds often have BMX handlebars, and this model was no exception:

With new wheels and a cool found saddle, grips and other odds and ends, we have a nice new Bikeshare brand coaster bike!

 I named it Rover, after my cat (it's also the name of that bubble thing in The Prisoner, which fits our classic TV show bike naming scheme).

We still have a week or so of halfway decent riding weather left (it's November 6th as I'm writing this). Stop by sometime!

And be on the lookout for my art at Espressit Coffee Shop all November long.