Bike Build and Team Dinner

Last Friday the ladies of RideOn gathered at my house to enjoy some wonderful food and an adventure into bike building! Each team gets two Little 500 model bicycles to use during that year's practices, series events, and race. The Little 500 bicycles come neatly tucked into their Schwinn boxes and its each team's job to get their 'cycles in working order.


There are no complicated gears or brakes to deal with during building, and we needn't worry about damaging the sturdy (heavy) frames. Every piece of these bikes can either be screwed in by hand, or simply wrenched together and aside from breaking away for some lasagna, salad, and garlic bread they went together pretty quickly.





Each year's Little 500 bicycles have a unique paint job that represents Indiana University and the Indiana University Student Foundation that puts on the race. This year's bikes did not disappoint with a retro-styled cream and crimson coloring encasing the bike's frame. But our most favorite part of the bikes is the warning sticker below the handlebars explaining that this bike was "not designed for competition," as well as just about every other use one might have for a bicycle.




Of course after building our new bikes we needed to ride them. And though it was dark out and Laura rides very fast, I was able to capture this rare picture of her flying by.





And thanks to my roommate Jobe, a fellow Little 500 rider for the men's team Rainbow Cycling we got this lovely team shot of our successful bike build! Unfortunately Kelsey was sick with the flu and couldn't join us, but the other ladies of RideOn are (from L to R) Helen, Morgan, Danielle, Megan, and Laura.