A Blast From The Past

Couple or three months ago I posted about resurrecting an old fixie and stashing it in the valley.

The last line of that post was "I'm gonna love spending part of my bike time aboard a fixed gear again." Well, that kinda totally didn't work out. My battered old knees were just screaming for the mercy of gears the whole time. I've come to realize that fixed gear is totally cool. On somebody else's bike.

So Hank has been hankerin' for a chance to ride a fixie and I was able to move it his way. I've read and admired the way that John and Kent (he wrote a super-inspiring blog about the most and least number of bikes he's owned, but I'll be damned if I can find it . . .) and other guys loan and share and move bikes and this has been my first chance to kind of do that, so I am jacked. I don't have a ton of bikes and bike krap around, but to me it seems like a lot, and certainly more than I can use, and Patty and I are sort of hurtling towards this 'less is more' lifestyle, and . . . well, I'm seriously rambling now, but anyway, it was cool to hook up with Hank on this deal.

So anyhoo. Noisy, swollen knees aside, the experiment with the bike locker at Mirabeau has proven really positive. It is just so cool to have a bike secretly stashed somewhere in the city so that you can get there however and it is ready and waiting. So with the absence of the fixie, the locker was empty and in need of a bike. I looked around on CL and other places, but it is just such a royal PITA to go out and search for the right bike. You just have to trust that the bike gods will send it your way when the time is right. Like the way the AuqaVelva came to me. (Gawd, I love that bike, thanks Ken!) Or maybe they don't send the bike and instead send the message that you need to look around and make do with what you have.

So what I have, that's just sitting, is the first bike that I bought when I decided to go riding again, back in 2000. We were in Seattle and I bought the bike at Gregg's Greenlake Cycles. It cost me $400, which seemed like a fortune, but I was determined to have righteous hardware. I will never, ever forget the experience of purchasing that bike. I was a little kid again.

So over the years, this bike has just hung around and been used in a multitude of ways and it has morphed so many times into so many things. Like the dense high school dufus that doesn't have a clue that the hottest cheerleader is launching blatant teen-infatuation signals his way, I had to be smacked with a two-by-four to realize that this bike belonged in the locker. Smacked I finally was, though. I've spent the last couple of nights setting it up with all the dork hardware that I learned about on rec.bicycles.misc back in the day (while I was supposed to be working). It has been a restoration project, kind of like a classic car:



And now it's in the garage, waiting for me. I'm on my way.


Man, the memories are thick. What we've been through together, learning about traffic and weather and sweat and pain and rain and all that great stuff you learn about when you decide to get out of your car and get there on a bike.

Yeah, those are the weathered, cracked, faded, original 26 Inch Slicks.

Fun In The Park After Dark

On our daily/nightly ride-run into Manito, me 'n the fris-dawg ran across more awesome free entertainment. This time, the ultimate night light . . . a hot air balloon going nowhwere fast . . . parked in the park for show, and every time they'd fire the burner, what a show!

On the Subject of Frisbee Dogs and Cruisers

More convergence stuff, or maybe just wild ideas. Time will tell.

This is Brandy.


She's predominately Australian Shepherd. If you know the breed at all, they are 110% about their job. Since we don't have a ranch, her city-slicker job is chasing down anything that is launched from our hands or feet. I'm not talking about chasing it down as in getting it done sometime before coffee break. The future of civilization hangs in the balance, on every throw. She makes greased lightning look slow. This dog can scoot.

When our longtime family lab started to slow down, we intentionally went out looking for a smaller, auxiliary, back-up dog, that could learn the ropes and excellent manners from the main, heavy-duty dog. Brandy was a respectful student and picked up all kinds of great traits from the old girl. The other thing we intentionally went after was some energy. The kind that keeps your metabolism up. The kind that keeps you from sitting on your ass when you get home from work because you feel guilty that she has been waiting for you all day and her whole life revolves around you and nothing short of a drool-spewing workout will do. The kind that gets you out in all kinds of weather because it's just so flat-out fun to go hang out in the park with your pal and share the joy of gettin' after that damn ball!

Jasmine went to dog heaven a few weeks ago, and Brandy is a different dog. She's no longer auxiliary, and it's a hard adjustment when you've had an older sister that handles all the tough situations. But she's stepping up. And she's more focused than ever on her job.

So we're down to the park almost every day, like we've been every day since she came home with us. We walk sometimes, but mostly we bike, because she sleeps at the speed I walk. So we ride. And we pack the essential gear, as dictated by the conditions:

Ball "chucker"
Nylabone (daylight) frisbee (er, um, flying disc)
Large LED lighted frisbee (er, um, flying disc)
Small LED lighted frisbee (er, um, flying disc)
Plastic bag for picking up poop (I'm usually "plastic" on the "paper or plastic?" question)
Optional master's hydration for those extra-hard workouts

I threw the the blue and orange thing in there. It's called the 'flying squirrel'. Lame. If you have a really slow dog, it's yours. (As you can tell, I've been living with a slow dog for years and am now drunk with fast-dog arrogance.)

LED frisbees? Yeah, we get 'em at REI. Greatest invention EVER. We love summer, but we love the winter even more, because we have the whole place to ourselves and we turn it into a glow-in-the-dark playground. Sometimes we freak people out in a UFO-kind-of-way. People have immense immaginations in the dark. (Myself included.)

The AquaVelva's been a blessing, because now I can carry all the stuff I need in the baskets.

Yup, that's a bud light stashed under the (empty) poop-sack in the front basket. Good eye. Anyway, no more slobbery frisbees (er, um, flying discs) stuffed into my backpack. No more plastic bags of poop stinking up the side pocket.

But the other night, as I was hydrating between demanding, athletic tosses, I had a vision. It had to do with some cruiser stuff that's been happening lately.

First, I went to get my hair cut the other night. Ed cuts my hair. He's the reason I look so awesome. (Not buying it? Whatever, bite me.) Anyway, Ed has this new, totally awesome, head-turning, screams-cool Electra cruiser that he's commuting on. I got there early and I'm checking it out, and Ed says that I better take it for a spin while I'm waiting. Twist my arm. And it turns out to be way more fun than way fun. People are yelling at me about how cool my bike is. It's not my bike, but the secret is safe. At my age, I'll take all the attention I can get.

Then, over this past weekend, Patty, Jacque and I went out of town for a family wedding and had an opportunity to rent some cruisers in our spare time one afternoon. We were diggin' it! Just one of those "in the moment" deals.

I've always thought cruisers were cool. Someone else's cruisers, though. Never could figure out what to do with one, myself. But all of a sudden, with a brilliant flash of LED light, I'm thinking about how cool it would be to take a cruiser and turn it into a dedicated run-dog-run-dog-bike. Something like this:


Is this legit, or have I finally lost it?

Dopey Boy

I love cable ties and tape of all kinds (I prefer duct and electrical and strapping, but all tape is good). Always have, always will. Because cable ties and tape solve a lot of problems, even if only temporarily.

Trouble is, if you're not even qualified to use them, they can create a lot of problems, even if only temporarily.

Case in point?

The AV came with an aluminum stay protector that I thought was cool, in a doting, motherly way. It was falling off, so I secured it with a couple of cable ties until I could do a better fix. Naturally. Then the cable ties started working their way down the tapered stay, so I put a couple wraps of electrical tape around the cable ties until I could do a better fix. Naturally.

The dang trouble are, if you's to tape up the cable, the blasted SOB don't shift too good no more. (That was my best attempt at a down-south accent, sorry).



It's obviously time to do some sort of personal evaluation, but I think instead I'll just take the 'glass is half full' aproach on this one. Hundreds of thousands of people across the country today will realize significant performance improvements to their cars after spending hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars at repair shops. My improvement will be significanter, and won't cost a dime.

Busy Times, Good Times

The AquaVelva's been out of commission for a little over a week. A rear bearing problem that forced me to seek nearby professional help.




It's been killing me . . . I've only had the bike what, about three weeks, and my happiness is totally dependent on it. I picked up the wheel and a cuppa jo from Joe this morning. I'm jacked to get this bike back on the road and hyped up on caffeine. Good wired times.


Brandy, the "take-me-to-Manito-and-let-me-chase-anything" dog, is slightly more excited than I am. Good dog times.



Last night my club hosted the Double Trouble Twilight Race. I'm pretty involved with that and so it's been a couple of super-hectic days of running around town, moving a lot of equipment from here to there. We had 48 racers turn out. Things went well.



I want to write more about the process of organizing a race in a separate post. It's pretty interesting stuff. Today I returned the last of the equipment, so I'm free to park the truck and ride again! Good times.

Just prior to all the race business, we were camping in the Twisp neighborhood over the holiday weekend. We were there with non-bikey relatives, but we managed to get out for a couple of rides. The first was from our camp at 2800' up to Blackpine lake, at about 4000', over a distance of about 3 miles. That was enough climbing for Patty for one vacation. But she'd have to admit she had a good time on the way down.




The next day I snuck away on my own and pedalled up to Buttermilk Butte (is that a cool name, or what) at 5600'. Two hours going up (at one point I was busting ass to do 3.3 mph), and half an hour coming down. Spectacular scenery and 9 miles of super-fast double-track windey all-downhill fun. Super good times.




These showers in downtown Twisp are the total bomb. I emerged lean, mean and clean. Well, clean at least. Real good times.




The geniune (non-TG) Parelas came in last week and then sat there in a box all weekend. If I'm gonna check out John's supple tire theory, I need to do it right.




The half-ass TG thing was leaving me to wonder. I finally managed to get 'em mounted late Monday night.





I won't get to do any real testing for a couple of days, but I concocted a lame excuse to get out on them for at least a couple of miles (a bill that had to be paid and deliverd to the PO on Grand immediately).




Couldn't tell much about the tires, but I did pass a guy on 29th riding with no lights or reflectors. I'm all about the thrill of taking risks, but dude, you're an organ donor. I hope the next guy treats them better than you. Yeah, so I sound like a grandma, whatever. But I also have some experience of having to go through, and watching other people go through, a lot of reconstruction. That whole experience totally sucks and you should at least do what can to reasonably increase your odds of survival. Riding with zero lights or reflectors isn't it. That dipshit pissed me off for a minute, but then I let it go and it was good times again.

Haven't had time to catch one minute of TdF television coverage. I've just followed via some crappy, boring blogs. Now that things are slowing down just a bit, I'm looking for some places to watch. Good times, good times.

Euphoria

This was the best day in the history of the world.

Yeah, I'm exaggerating, but a pretty dang good day. This was the perfect weather we were dreaming about through all those MANY months of garbage that we thought would never end, and just about didn't. I just thoroughly enjoyed being on my bike today.

Today I found out that the AquaVelva, an old soul, has some kind of very weird spiritual past life that compels it to run stop signs and ride on the sidewalk. I just wish I could do something to stop it.

I'm getting sucked into the GDR. Last night I found out that my wife's sister went to grade school with David and at the same time I made the connection that his dad is the deacon at our church. So even though I don't know David at all, now it's a tiny bit third-party-personal. The Spokane guys who do know David and are all over this are Jason and John. You should check it out, because it's pretty epic stuff.

De Leon Downtown is open. This is major, to quote the 80's.




I picked up a set of Panaracer Paselas (35c's, cause that's what they had), on the way home from work. The stoic self-portrait is something to behold, I know.





I was so proud, riding up the SH with my new rubber draped over my shoulder. That is, until I got home and found out that in all my excitement, I failed to realize they were Tour Guards. I was specifically instructed to stay away from the TG's, and I blew it. But it's too beautiful a day to dwell on mistakes and beat myself up, and besides, I already got the krap kicked out of me at work, so I put it behind me . . . they're already mounted and ready for tomorrow's ride. I'm going with the "everything happens for a reason" theory.

I stopped at Rosauer's on the way up the hill. PBR light? Who knew. Like this day couldn't get any better.

Nice and Ugly

A few days ago I blogged about the bike that will take me from Mirabeau to work. So I'm halfway there. Now for the other half.

What I need is a bike that I can ride from my house on the South Hill down to the Plaza, lock to a rack and leave there all day, and then ride it back up the hill at the end of the day. It needs to be relatively efficient on pavement, but it would also be nice if it had a little off-road capability so that I can ride up or down the the trails off High Drive on occasion. And of course it needs to be able to haul a little freight so I can do errands on the way home. It needs to be ugly enough so that nobody bothers it at the plaza and double-ugly enough so that I don't get attached to it, in case they do anyway. But if it could have just a hint of charisma amidst the ugliness, that would be cool, too.

So I decided that the bike for the job is an older rigid-fork mountain bike. There are quite a few around, so finding one shouldn't be too tough, and shouldn't take a lot of cash. I started my search with Craigslist. Too far to travel looking at bikes. Then, yard sales. Colossal waste of time. Next, pawn shops. Mostly front-suspended, over-priced Chinese bikes with no character. I was starting to think this was going to be a little tougher than I thought. But then, out of the blue, Ken over at the Cycling Spokane forum posted about an old Specialized Hard Rock for sale at the VOA thrift store for $60. (Thanks, Ken!) I knew it was the bike for me when I read that it was a "Gloriously god-awful shade of green." Due to my superior bargaining skills, I was able to talk them all the way down to $55. ;-)


Here she is on the day I brought her home, in all her glory, complete with mis-matched knobbies. The picture doesn't do it justice, but trust me when I tell you the saddle is hideously non-anatomical.




The weird roller-cam rear brake that Ken mentioned.

Color-coordinated stem with pass-through brake cable. Sweet.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been goofing around with her, going through the bearings and whatnot, shaking her down on short trips around the neighborhood. She's quickly become the short-trip, jump-on-in-your-flipflops, errand-running bike of choice. I don't wanna carry any kind of tool kit, so I had to get some Armadillos. I love Armadillos, but these are seriously ugly. I can't believe I bought them. I can't believe I spent more on them than on the bike. They should be perfect.

She's a work in progress, but we're off to a good, ugly start. She's ready for her first commute tomorrow.

I'm know I'm not supposed to get attached to this bike. She's now ugly enough that only a mother could love her. I call her the AquaVelva. You can call me mother.