repair any type of bike

1st of all, who you know here? And where your pants go? And, 'cross season is just around the corner. This is a colored text indicating it as a link to the local race schedule. Are you feelin it? I'm feelin it.

Time to get on some skinny fat tyres. Look at those shiny reeyums. Maiden voyage on the just rebuilt wheelset. XTR-DT-HplusSon. I put them through some paces, maing, and it was solid GO! And see how everthing shines.

The shrine is looking a little tired. Who drank all the whiskey and hasn't reupped the supply? Somebody with no respect for the spirits.

Home through dirt to some pavement to South Boundary (up, up, up) to the washed out poofy sandiness that is Fort Ord this time of year, and home again via the hardish dirt way up and over. Solid 40ish miles.

Well, I was training.

Evil brushes it's teeth

If you are the guy who stops the group so he can adjust his suspension, you lack a fundamental awareness of (cycling) etiquette.  Yes, if you haven't taken care to adjust your Xs, your Ys or your Zs before you start (one more reason to ride to the ride, as if you needed it) then the proper course is to wait until the first naturally occurring break and do it then.

None of your bros- no matter how "down"- want to wait for your pissing, your seat height adjustment, your lens changing, or your one last whatever. So, if you left your key/shoes/helmet at the shop and don't have a means to get in and get it yourself, you're fucked. If you invite yourself along (and if folks tolerate it), expect to be responsible for your own ride. That means having your own pump, patch kit, spare tube, tools, water, food, jacket, beer, whiskey, weed, and any other damn thing you might want or need. If you invite yourself and you require someone else to ride from the meet-up back to the shop and open it  so you can get any of these items, you are an asshole. And finally, if that is the case and you invited the new Fucking New Guy (who happens to be a girl) that none of us have ever met, whose riding level none of us know, who doesn't have a bike of her own, and requires that we ride a further couple miles out of the way to the other shop to get her a rental? You need a punch in the fucking head.

That is some True Facts right there. Another true fact is that so and so pulled some of those things on the last group go-round. I don't mind being the bad guy, so I threw his ass off the ride.

Full Invite Only Moon tonight, fools.

after all our so-called success

Some things I notice whilst commuting are: 2 wheeled drifting is fun and exciting, how quiet (how still) it is up above town in the trees, the magic golden hour in which all the trees are lit from the setting sun and especially so when approached from the East and below, how green and inviting the hills seem from the drab streets surrounding the shop.

                                                         that's on a way to work.


Commuting puts me Right with the world. As an aside, A___ (who claims to know certain things about certain places we'd all like to ride our bikes in order to see if it's fun and worth it so that we can connect these places with others farther and nearer in order to form a more perfect bike ride of great magnitude and camping while drinking beers) is a bundle of divided attentions and he asked me how many miles in a day I do and I told him "prolly like a 100" and he didn't bat an eye either because he didn't pay attention to the answer or because he has no frame of reference (even though any fool, locally, could tell you roughly the mileage from Carmel to Monterey or look it up if they actually wondered versus just saying something for the sake of having something to say, which many people do) and, but, so it made me laugh.

About 16 miles the route(s) I use. I'm not into "training", I'm into riding.

My, the Poison Oak (toxicodendron diversilobum) is lovely this year!

And finally, who among us doesn't love a honky tonk?

One Size Fits All

Sticking to the basics on the Wednesday Night One Speed World Championship Series.

If you got a working system, it's best to not throw a wrench in it.

Dang,  I regret not being able to attend Fall Creek Friday...

_______ of these events is merely bargaining

With 2 consecutive days off, you have choices. Some opportunities present themselves more readily than others. Bike camping is always ready to cut in line. In point of fact, the Big Dummy featured in my dream on account of we had been planning to use it for this trip.

 J is still willing to ride for fun. We figured we'd head over to the Secret Spot and spend a night.

Neither of us fancies driving if we can ride.

It's been a while since I used the Big Dummy. Sad to say, it has been put away wet many times. On the climb I stopped us a couple times to rerig the load in an attempt to banish the clunk. By the time we go to the interchange pictured above, I could not ignore the wiggly bottom bracket.

I considered. My inclination in situations of this type is to just run it. It has worked for me as often as not. I can learn the hard way, eventually, as evidenced by the decision to turn around, go home and switch bikes. This was a tough break.

J did really well riding with traffic. We talked about watching for car doors, and cars on the side of the road with their lights on (indicating potential for ________), and cars backing up, and where to stop and how far over to the right to stay, etc ad nauseum. He was rock solid. The turn around did not phase him on account of it was all downhill.

I don't know where you are in your bike repair spectrum right now. I, personally, have 2 bikes in perfect working order and 9 several in various stages of non-work. Of these, a number have parts cannibalised and interchanged. I knew it was a whole new ball of wax waiting for me in the bike room, and I wasn't stoked. I wanted to ride, not wrench! And daylight is always slipping away...


Gah!


I got right to the parts swapping. One thing led to another, and there was the backtracking and the sidetracking, and just as I was deciding it was a master stroke to just go ahead and attach the Pletscher rear rack rather than take a rack off another bike to attach- J said, "Why don't you just take the basket bike?" Which bike is one of the 2 bikes in perfect working order, as it is my commuter. Well, as perfect as a clapped out collection of sweet-but-well-used-parts hung on a 1989 pink/purple/teal StumpJumper (top of the line, bitches! Specialized doesn't make a nicer bike) can be. But and yes, that was just the right idea at just the right time.

So I was guided to The Way by an 8 year old, and in short order we were gone.

In that there above, J is cleaning his rock that he found to take home.

And in that there above, J is Eddy Merckxcury. Welcome back, 1982! He likes to wear tank tops these days to "show off my muscles." I blame California.

hey! did I ever tell you 'bout the time I married my cousin out in Las Vegas, Nevada?

Last night I dreamed.

I dreamed the wife and I were walking up a road in a mountain town holding armloads of flyers for some event. There was some big festival going on- Bluegrass or something. I was pushing the Big Dummy, and set it down on a lawn as we stopped to post a few of these flyers. As it was a dream, I did a thing I'd never do in real life- I walked away from the bike and forgot it. Even in dreams, though, I do like the bicycles and very quickly realized the error.

When I turned around, some bike thief was getting on the bike and clumsily turning around for a get away. I began to run after, yelling "Stop!" I ran in slow motion. He was getting away, through the crowds of festival goers. I yelled again, "Stop that long bike!" But he absconded. I ran too slow.

I asked the group lounging on the lawn if I could borrow a bike to give chase and a gal obliged. It was a burning man special- all trashed and loaded up with dirty accoutrements. I chased, and I rode in slow motion. Eventually, I was hiking the bike down a cliff-side singletrack. It was the next morning and I was still looking. I saw the thief below me, giving joyrides to his degenerate friends in the camping area. I made my way through several confused obstacles down to the field. I wandered the rows of campers and autos and I considered what to do with the POS loaner which now had a front flat; the tyre hanging off the rim. I knew I couldn't leave it and it was incredibly frustrating.

Then I woke up mad. I tried to go back to sleep so's I could catch that thief and give him a beating, but to no avail.

to the Bat Cave!

Look. My buddy Todd got run over recently and required air-lifting to Stanford, emergency surgery, and the driver was uninsured. That's some bum luck. I have been around this internet and seen all kind a pleas for help in situations like this. Todd is not asking for something for nothing (he got that from the uninsured motorist who pulled out to pass on a blind corner), so if you like bikes and t-shirts and got a few bucks burning a hole in your wardrobe budget then head over to Todd's website and order some. You'd be helping him help himself.

Thank you, strangers.