“Bad Habits” and The Bike of The Week

Up at 3:30AM writing a blog post because… reasons. Long story short one of my roommates is exceedingly annoying and doesn’t give a shit when other people have to sleep. I have nothing nice to say about him, so I’m going to be productive, and here I am. Let’s talk about the good shit.

@Soberbot says I’ve been sober for 52 days.

It took me 51 days to piss clean for weed. I haven’t gone this long without smoking weed since I started working at Walmart after college in 2010. I have access to unlimited urinalysis tests and get weekly labs done at the place where I live now, and the data doesn’t lie. The “internet consensus” is that it takes about 30 days for most people to get clean after they stop smoking weed.

I stopped on January 22, 2021. I didn’t have a clean UA until March 13, 2022. I have a reasonably high metabolism and low body fat. This kind of blew my mind. Don’t count on being clean after quitting for 30 days. If in doubt, go to Walgreens and buy your own tests and see for yourself.

The Sober Life

Along with weed, I’ve been clean from all substances including alcohol (my drug of choice…) but excluding caffeine and nicotine (you’ll have to pry those from my cold, dead hands) since January 22, 2022. This is a new thing for me, and I couldn’t do it without the living situation I chose, which is what’s known as a sober living home. I desperately needed to form new habits, so I took drastic measures.

Now instead of drinking when I “don’t have anything better to do” I go for a walk, a run, a hike (a walk on dirt with lots of hills, laughs in Coloradoan), or I pick up my skateboard or drive over to the garage where I keep all of the other toys that make my life worth living.

It’s not much, but, along with all the other things, an old Miata and 5 motorbikes make me happy. So does skateboarding and long walks in the park. These are better habits than an alcohol habit by a country mile.

I started teaching myself how to juggle using my non-dominant hand. I’m doing weekly blog posts even if they’re about next-to-nothing or I just go on about myself like I’m doing here. I didn’t used to do these things, or I only did them when I was sober enough to be able to, which there at the end was rarely if ever.

Alcohol sapped my ability to be productive. It affected all aspects of my life, including the things that make my life worth living – my hobbies and my business, which are the same things. I went from living by myself in Denver, in an environment where I made the rules, to living with 12 other dudes in a 4000 square foot house in Colorado Springs.

I’ve been answering the phone. And following up with new and old customers alike, making sure I show up to appointments as prepared as possible. Everything’s easier when I’m sober, so I plan on keeping this up for life.

I can’t wait to ride that red one on the left. That’s my favorite bike! It took me to work when I didn’t have a car! It helped get me into ridiculously good shape when I was in my 20s! I’ve put more sets of tires on it than anything else I own. I’ve owned it for longer than anything else I own. It’s a good ship!

It’s the turbocharged Miata of bicycles in my mind, and I love the way it looks. It’s all black and red with splashes of silver, decent frame with high end components from about 10-15 years ago. I’ve been working on the yellow one for something like 4 or 5 years now, when I wasn’t too drunk to get around to it. There’s a rebuilt engine sitting in a plastic tote in front of it. God willing the coolant won’t leak from its weep hole, and I’ll get to put more hours on it when the weather warms up.

For Sale: 2009 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R

Life gets in the way sometimes. A customer bought this bike 5-6 years ago to use on the track. Then he had kids and the bike sat. It’s fuel injected, so it fired right up when he tried to start it recently. I took a good look at it, and it’s a great bike with about 6500 miles on it. In my opinion real sport bikes like this one are fantastic machines, but they’re quite a handful on the street – even the 600cc bikes.

I’d bet a good deal could be had on it. If you’re interested in a machine like this, give me a call at (720) 634-6935, and I’ll put you in touch with the owner.

Bike of The Week

Bike of the week goes to this lovely Yamaha QT50. I got it running, tuned it up, and put new tires on it. The only tires available for it are slightly too wide, so I had to flare the fender mounts out with a hammer to get them to fit.

It’s very rare to find these bikes complete with all the plastics, but somehow this one survived for more than 40 years before its new owner picked it up as his vintage commuter bike. It’s working out as well as can be expected. It’s quirky and old and gets a lot of compliments! Everyone loves a cute, old bike!

Parts are available for these bikes at treatland.tv, the internet’s Moped Parts Superstore Emporium. Even if you don’t have a moped, the product descriptions make this a site worth checking out, especially if you’re into communications, marketing, or just fun writing. Along with the Honda Express bikes, the Yamaha QT50 isn’t really a moped on account of having no pedals to start it with, so they call it a “noped”. How cute is that? Very cute!

As always if you have a bike to fix, book online or hit me up at (720) 634-6935 or (719) 425-5515.