I’ve been putting bikes together since I Vise-Gripped brother Bark’s Huffy Stu Thomsen into adjustment thirty-two years ago. So it’s somewhat embarrassing to admit that it took me the best part of an hour to assemble my 1986 Haro Lineage Master Cruiser using a variety of primarily automotive tools. I don’t know what happened to all of my bike stuff in the past ten years. The good news is that I was able to find the two really expensive but almost necessary items that made adjusting the rear U-brake less of a chore — my cable cutter and third-hand tool that I bought from Park Tools during the (only) Clinton Administration.
The Master Cruiser (as opposed to the Master Compressor, which is a Jaeger LeCoulture watch costing between five and hundred times as much as this bike) is a deliberate historical fabrication. The first skatepark-oriented 24-inch Haro was the Nyquist X24 Backtrail. I bought one in 2001 and rode it almost every day for about a year. I remember it very well because while I was riding it at the skatepark in Lancaster, Ohio after work one afternoon I hung up the back wheel on the coping of a seven-foot quarterpipe. I lost both feet and tumbled to the asphalt, ringing my bell hard enough to taste colors and putting a sprain in my left ankle that never really went away.
