I have been remiss. Maybe re-missing in action. I've been doing too much stuff, crazy stuff, to be blogging it up all the time. But balance must be found.
No, not "re-missing in action" like that.
Like this. The other day I lead 35 inner-city kids through The Fells. Did it go really, really well? Depends on what your definition of of "well" is. Did we have fun? Hell yeah! It was awesome. We've got insurance, so fuck it. That's my new motto, "fuck it." That, of course, is not the official Roll It Forward/Youth Cycling Program motto. But it should be.
Then there's the Thursday Night MTB Championships of The Universe. It has to be the hardest MTB group ride around. It's so hard that people who like hard rides are totally freaked out by it. I live in Wrentham now, it totally sucks for me to get to this thing, but it's worth it and I make it...most of the time.
Know what else sucks? Packing your bike for a trip to bend, getting there, and then realizing that you:
- Left your saddle and seatpost in the workstand
- Your left XTR pedal in self-destructing
- And you forgot your mini-USB cord for your Contour HD (not bike-related but still sucky)
Having to pay retail for bike parts'll learn ya to be more fastidious right quick! And you know what else? The remembering to stand all the time when you don't have a seatpost isn't the issue...it's the remembering not to sit down.
Yes, I live in fucking Wrentham now, it's a long story. I am in the process of exploring various modes of getting to Boston from there. Some days I ride my Schwinn Varsity to the train and then hop on a stylin' Raleigh I've left at South Station. My buddy Seth shows me just how stylin' I might look riding the Raleigh. And yes, that's Boston Harbor there.
Conversely, Seth shows me how lame I look when I ride the folding Chinese "Komda" to the train during peak hours. It is truly horrible. The sub-5-mile spin to the train is like water boarding.
I've recommissioned the Fisher Ferrous I call "Dunderchee" as a trailer bike. I ride it over to White Barn Farm, home of The Ice Weasels for veggies, the market, and the liquor store. It is cracked, but I will ride it until it fails catastrophically.
I live a 35 mile ride from Boston, but this is where I live. It's a nice ride, and it might be worth it. Scott Brown is my neighbor. He drops grass clippings in my neighbor's yard, shows photos of himself in his underwear to teenage babysitters, and still doesn't have lake front property. The douche.
Sometimes I ride this, "The aThomination" to or from work. It's a single speed and I have given up and put panniers on it. We're through being cool.
Of course I did walk into JRA Cycles a couple days ago and buy this:
It's a Kona Major one in a 56cm. They still have a 54cm in stock. It's a rad bike, I have no idea why they didn't produce them for 2011. I did restrain myself from buying the Stan's No Tubes Flow/Industry Nine Wheelset they had in stock, even though my rear wheel was thrashed. I still have time to make that mistake.
Hey! Hey! Easy guy, we're just easing back into this stuff here alright dyude. There are plans for The Big Bikes to go way more legit. It may all begin with a kickstarter campaign where readers get to decide just how much of my bodily hair gets waxed.
And that, is where I end it.
2 comments:
RE: broken trailer -
a) JB weld two part epoxy. Available at most hardware and autoparts stores for a few bucks. The stuff has moderate viscosity, so it might drip after you pack it in the break, but dries as hard as any epoxy on the market. After it dries it an be filed, sanded or drilled. If you force it into the break, then wrap a piece of sheet metal and clamp it with hose clamps or pipe clamps it will dry with nearly the same strength as the original. I fixed a creased top tube in a cannondale MTB in 1995 and raced it for a year. I stll have the bike and the repair is still good.
b)Mighty Putty two-part epoxy. This is the stuff that billy mays(RIP) sold on TV. The shit really works. It has the consistency of clay so it stays where you put it. Tyler Munroe used it to repair a crack in the seat stay of his carbon fiber MTB (gary fisher sugar, I think?) and he races it now. It looks like a cancerous lesion but he says it shows no sins of flex. I've used it to fix all sorts of things, but no bike parts.
thats more of a balance than I've found.
shame-less keeps licking my feet.
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