Ride Lugged

In the midst of all things smart and well with the world…I do things to my bike that just don’t fit…take for instance the Cateye light I have rigged as my patented “Drop-Light” mount…or the Ital flag so poorly painted onto the spacers…. and the dings from where a child seat once was mounted to the bike using the top tube and resting on the headset…nothing is sacred. I reposted pics of the paint job I did on the volpe if anyone is interested in seeing a better view of my panels and flags….MUHAHAHAH. The best part is I wasn’t even drinking when I did this…though if I was I probably would’ve thought better of my idea and stopped…?

If you ask me, this fender is a blatant ripoff.

Look at the similarities! They both have pumps.

And what about this.

Flickr photos from the AmGen tour of California shot by the blogger from 1115.org. Also, how fucking sweet is it that Chipotle sponsors a team?

Some random bike photos.

A little while ago, the NBA decided to ditch traditional leather balls, not for vegan reasons, or anything like improved function, but so ball makers would have a new ball to market.  Players were duped (my opinion) into thinking the new ball was good.  Maybe it was, in a sand papery, hand chafe-y way.  ‘The new sythetic ball takes the NBA from pomp and showmanship to masochism…’, ‘Watch Lebron dunk and bleed!’… Anyway, the NBA did something it rarely does: it admitted the new ball was wack, and went back to tradition.

Major League Baseball has made a similar blunder: replacing ages old wool caps with sythetics.  Lets hear the reasons.  They really are brilliant.

*new polyester blend model designed to wick away sweat before it can stream down a player’s face.

*The change is part of commissioner Bud Selig’s focus on boosting player performance, a Major League Baseball official said, and follows a general trend toward moisture-managing “performance” materials in sports apparel.

*”They look exactly the same, they breathe more and they won’t shrink,” Verlander said. “The best thing is, when it rains, the hats won’t stink like the wool ones did.”

*”Sweat stains, and you can’t see it but they start to smell a bit, and also with certain colors they tend to bleed when the players sweat, so if you watch the Cardinals or teams that wear red caps, occasionally you’ll see red bleeding into the white on logos.

They forsaking 100 years of tradition for faith in junk science.  Polyester, on a hot day, cant wick moisture fast enough, so it has to absorb it, or let it run down your face.  Since its hydrophobic, its just gunna run down your face.  Wool, on the other hand, wicks moisture, but also can absorb a lot of sweat, keeping your face drier, longer.  Wicking is junk science when the outside humidity is around the same as whats under your cap, so the polyester doesnt even work in certain climates.  Sheep on the other hand, live in a wide variety of ecosystems.

On the second point:  the commissioner isnt interested in sythetics because of anything other than marketing and capital.  They are far cheaper to produce, with higher profit margins.

“They look exactly the same, they breathe more and they won’t shrink,”    Sythetics dont develop beausage.  They just look like shit, quick.  That said, they are cheaper to replace when they do look like shit.   An old wool hat looks broken in, an old sythetic hat looks broken.

“”The best thing is, when it rains, the hats won’t stink like the wool ones did.”  I would rather smell like wet wool for 30 minutes than like sweaty sythetics for even a minute. Some of the players dont wash a hat all season.  Try that with a sythetic, not antimicrobial…thats some funky shit…

As to dyes bleeding.  Get better dyes.  Jeez.

I think it would be easier to understand this guy if he just spoke in spanish. All I know is that 3 bikes welded into 1 bike = “driving easy, more relaxed like you sleeping in that way”.

via makeblog

retarded.

Custom bike builders take note, watch how the pros do it. The key to a good bike is robots, lots of robots. The question is when will they eliminate humans from this process completely? As sick as this kind of mass production is, the wheel building part is pretty entertaining.

“A woman tests the masturbation bike, whose wheel is equipped with feathers.”