Beatrix & Leopold: A Love Story
nce upon a time, far away in a bicycle factory in the Kingdom of Austria, two bicycles were lovingly made by a bored and modest bookkeeper named J.C. Higgins. Their names were Beatrix and Leopold. They were to be gifts to the faraway kingdom of Sears and Roebuck, and were quite splendid indeed. On the long and pukey journey across the ocean to America, Beatrix and Leopold fell in love.
They enjoyed many years together in America, going to baseball games and picnics, and learning how to cuss in English. But one day, Beatrix and Leopold were seized by a Dark Lord and brought to his enormous castle, to do with as he willed.
The Dark Lord presented Beatrix as a gift to his Queen, but alas she favoured a speedy and handsome Trek road bike and left poor Beatrix to sit around gathering dust and laundry in the castle basement.
Meanwhile, poor Leopold was left to a horrible fate. He was hung by a hook in the castle’s bike co-op waiting to be snatched by Evil Hipsters and used for the sole purposes of beer runs and trips to the local bar.
One day, a princess from the neighbouring kingdom of River Heights was exchanging emails with the Dark Lord (but certainly not during work hours) and mentioned she had always dreamed of having a sweet old vintage bike with a basket. And not one of those Chinese knock-offs either. The real deal. The Dark Lord thought the princess was a little kooky, but also thought of Beatrix, who was taking up precious room in the castle’s basement.
The Dark Lord, who had been feeling a little bad about separating Beatrix and Leopold, told the Princess their story. The Princess thought about her Prince, who had been talking about how cool it would be to fix up an old cruiser bike.
The Dark Lord and the Princess knew right away what needed to be done and started to hatch a brilliant scheme to spring Leopold from the clutches of the Evil Hipsters and reunite him with his beloved Beatrix. Wearing a disguise of skinny teenage girl jeans, a plaid shirt and horn-rimmed glasses, the Dark Lord walked into the Hipster’s lair completely undetected and freed poor Leopold. The Princess was waiting around back with her sport utility carriage and whisked Leopold away with a Princess-y wave of thanks to the Dark Lord.
Beatrix and Leopold were reunited on Christmas day, and there was much rejoicing. But the years of captivity in the Hipster’s lair had been hard on poor Leopold. His wheels no longer matched, his crank was a mess, and his emblem and front fender had been cruelly stripped off.
Despite these hideous deformities, Beatrix still loved him, and the Prince and Princess were pretty sure they could fix him up with some tender loving care, a new crank and a sweet new set of wheels.
The Prince isn’t much for blogging, so he has entrusted me to keep record of Leopold’s fabulous makeover. Stay tuned!
p.s. Don’t tell him I called it a “makeover”.
This is truly awesome. You may recall I had aspirations to do the same thing, I had lines on a bike but couldn’t run over and pick it up that very second and then the guy sold it from under my nose. Damn. And then it occurred to me that I had no skills to fix the darn thing up anyhow — so I gave up the dream. This will be truly fascinating to watch this make-over transpire. Awesome!
Oh and the time you took to do all that freaking photoshopping is great too.
Please don’t take those bikes to your fave bike store. Maybe one you don’t have on your fave list. Please……
Haha!! Yes, it should be an awesome project. Beatrix just needs some cleaning up, and a basket of course. Leopold is going to be a much bigger project and the hubby is pretty excited about it. Don’t worry Rick, I’ll keep you busy enough with the Giant.
Haha! Rick… come on… you wanna get your hands dirty on one of those beauties don’t you? Admit it. See though, that’s why I ultimately decided to not do that kind of bike make-over because really it wouldn’t be me doing the work, it would be me paying Dave to do the work. And he would have loved that too, I just know it!
I think Beatrix needs to be a sexy red though. Or a sexy Gold perhaps?
[…] at Christmastime, I told the love story of Beatrix and Leopold, two reunited British roadster “project” bikes that had come into my possession via The […]
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