Big Bikes

Some Last Minute Training for The SWANK

Friday morning, two days before the SWANK I went up to Durham to meet up with another Boston transplant, Adrian Fletcher. We used to work together at Ace Wheelworks in Somerville, MA. Before that he was the guy who worked the parts counter at IBC Boston and made fun of me when I was attempting to build up my first fixed gear. "Um, ya, I need a chainring...". "What bolt circle diameter?". "What, what?". "Come back when you know what bolt circle diameter your chainring is (dumbass)". Now he works as an EMT in Durham. "I'm having a heart attack". "No you're not, it's indigestion, come back when you're having a heart attack (dumbass)".

He goes to coffee shops and doesn't drink coffee. This is like going to the crack house and not smoking crack. He is a freak.

He got his-self a Kona Unit 29er. For some insane reason he's running IRC Mythos 700 X 44 hybrid tires. The only thing they're good for besides getting flats is picking up poo. I figured this out while test riding it around his yard. At least there's no tread on them so the poo washes off easy.

Chris doing his best Dexter "I am totally stoked photo-face" in front of his place Carrboro.

We headed over to Brian's house to pick him up for a ride. At one time it was a run of the mill little ranch house. The darker areas of the facade are all textured steel plates. They look cool and serves as good bulllet-proofing in case of drive bys.

More shots of Brian Plasters' house.

While we waited I took more photos of his stuff. Hope he doesn't mind.

McQueen and Adrian.

Dunderchee.

There are killer trails about five minutes from McQueen's house in Chapel Hill North. Real tight, swoopy singletrack with optional little gap jumps and log jumps. It's a whole lot of trail packed into a real small area. I had a super good time out there.

Adrian's wee tires caught up with him quickly. Luckily Brian also runs bolt on axles with 15mm axle nuts, so he was carrying a 15mm wrench. While he fixed the flat a plane buzzed us on the way to the airport right next door...I was totally freaked out. I might have a phobia - an irrational fear of planes crashing directly into my head.

The gauntlet got thrown down, it hit me in the foot and I was like "What the hell, who did that?" and Chris was like "Dude if you don't ride over that big, pointy rock and probably smash every tooth out of your face you are a huge pussy". Adrian concurred and told me that I had too many teeth anyway so I threw myself over the thing.

You can see me redirect my front wheel off of the kind of wheel trapping slab of rock at the top. That was the moment when I said goodbye to my numerous teeth. It really doesn't look that scary, but it was.




Adrian informed us that we were going drinking after the ride. We started at The Milltown where we spent only the most cursory amount of time drinking quality beers before switching to large quantities of PBR. The place was cool but the hostesses made us feel like we were in a foreign country, they didn't speak our language, and they hated Americans. Maybe they were just racists and could tell Adrian was an Octoroon. And North Carolina went to Obama...no thanks to these two racist hostesses.

We stopped at The Lantern a place co-owned by Mac Mccaughan of Superchunk. They serve excellent cocktails and Japanesey type food. I had my first Sake-Tini. It may be my new favorite drink.

Next time: My First Chick-Fil-A Sandwich or How I Am Continuing to Get Fat At An Alarming Rate.