“Flight com, I can’t hold her! She’s breaking up! She’s breaking—”.

The image of a rusted red two-wheeler rocketing through the atmosphere. The bike hits the ground at 250 mph and tumbles six times.

The 1964 CCM, vintage one-speed. A bicycle barely alive.  Bought for a song at a Kingston antique market after re-entering earth’s atmosphere.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic bike. The vintage 1964 CCM Ladies one-speed will be that bike. Better than she was before. Better…stronger…faster.

Cue music as the bike’s frame is lifted up from the makeshift painting booth consisting of a broken 1×6 from the neighbor’s fence and suspended with cheap yellow nylon rope from the rafters of the kinross cordless workshop.

A high-tech imaging machine rattles off diagnostics and rebuild checkpoints:

— bionic legs: the bike’s wheels — check. Bearings are cleaned and repacked, spokes are freed, new rubber and tubes complete the rebuilt wheels.

— a bionic eye — check. The original CCM fork caps complement the bike’s bionic eye — the original CCM head-badge installed when the bike was built at the Weston plant in Toronto. The eye will guide the bike along future roads less travelled.

— bionic arm — check. An aftermarket yet sturdy Swedish kickstand sits the bike up nice and straight when it’s not in motion.

— and finally, the atomic core. The CCM brand is built into the architecture of the pedal crank, and the elegant one-piece pedal arm is back in place with clean bearings. The bike’s frame and forks are restored to their original true-blue tone.

Cue slow motion visual sequence and electronic “dit dit dit” synthesized sound effects.

The bike is back in motion heading west-bound on Nealon Avenue. Kids playing ball hockey sweep their net back to let the CCM pass. Their eyes zoom in like telephoto lenses on the sharp new period decal on the bike’s downtube, obtained from a gent in Truro, Nova Scotia.

The mechanic stands up in the pedals, sweeps southbound on Arundel Avenue. The new wheels and tires give a smooth ride. A pounding sound creszendos to fill the soundtrack — it is the beating heart of the bicycle mechanic, riding one-handed and fumbling with his blackberry to take photos of the test ride while an automobile tries to squeeze by headed east on Browning. Flight com, this is no time to drop the bike.

Finally we are headed back north on Logan. The Norway maples in Riverdale are in lush green bloom following a hard Canadian winter. Soon the bike will be headed back to Quinton and the Blue-Bradshaws in Kingston for some summer fun.

The 1964 CCM vintage one-speed is back in motion, 50 years young, better than she was before.

Better… stronger… faster.