Ride Lugged

We started at South Mountain Creamery where we parked cars next to some giant furry dogs. We got there by late morning. Ironically almost everyone is sporting a Brooks except for Johnson. (By the way Hutch observed that your bike looked “dirty”- I think he just meant beat up). Damien is sporting one of his bikes freshly pinstriped. Mark riding fixed and no helmet (there’s always a badass). Christine and Rob with their newish Bianchi touring bikes. James and his “dirty” SS Witcomb. Me and my wood fendered beaut. And Hutch in his Bell trailer which he peed in then Damien ate the wet fruit snacks off the floor. They must taste better soaked in brine.

The goal of the ride was to go 14 easy miles to Gathland State Park eat lunch and look at the weird war correspondent monument then loop back to the creamery. If it had not been for non-stop rain and the gazillion hold ups, we would have arrived at lunchtime. Of course we didn’t. Rob could barely pull Hutch up the giant hills that we weren’t aware of (thanks to Johnson since we don’t live there anymore). So Damien pulled for a while. It would have been a beautiful ride had we been able to really see. It was so rainy that visibility was minimal and some of us were getting cold. At one point Christine and I fantasized about being under a big afghan sipping tea and watching Jane Austin movies.

It took us three hours to get to the half way point and instead of eating at the park, which some of us did, we just went to Damien’s house to warm up and get into clean clothes. We snatched the Clark family’s wardrobe from them like a pack of wild gypsies. I was happy since I got to play with their new puppy and watch racing on TV. By racing I mean men on bicycles with shaved legs. What?

Overall this ride was better than Zoo ride 1 when we rode in 20-degree weather and lost feeling in all 20 of our personal digits.

Love,
Mel

Skully, My First Mobile Post, originally uploaded by starmer.

This is my good luck juju idol thing that lights up when it gets bumped. I had it at the last 24 hour race. So I figured I should keep him around for the 24 hours of Big Bear. If possible I will try to post some photos during the race this weekend.

-Starmer

I think this is slightly off the bike topic, although it does involve aluminum tubing.

I recently went to four local stores hunting for something that should never have dissappeared. This something is going the way of other undeserving unfortunates: two tone car paint jobs (the last holdout, the Subaru Outback, is now one color), lugged production bikes for the masses, those ocsillating fans you could cut whole hands off with, and others of similar ilk. There is fundamental difference with this object. The things that are replacing it are heavier, more costly, less comfortable, uglier, more fragile, and harder to use. But, they have cup holders! Yes, I am referring to the lawn chair, crafted to perfection in post WWII America, as industy attempted to find new uses for aluminum tubing. The lawn chair of my childhood came in a seemingly endless variety of colors and patterns. They were always contructed of plain aluminum tubing, never painted.

a green and white plaid classic!  bidding was over 34 dollars for the pair with
3 days to go.

There were 3 types, and only 3 types. The low rider, which, like the lounge chair, was limited to leisure activities such as looking at girls in swimwear, or reading a book on the lawn. These two types were of limited utility at events, such as concerts on church greens. They werent tall enough, and you slouched to much to eat fudge brownies in them. The quinessential lawn chair, the one I truly mourn the loss of, was the most comfortable, easiest to move, easiest to get into and out of, and easiest to eat gooey summer things in. It was also taller, so you could see over all those people who brought low riders to the church lawn on Wednesday nights.

Aluminum lawn chairs rarely broke. The woven nylon strapping would eventually wear out, but it took years, and before it finally became useless, it acted much like a brooks saddle, breaking into the butt shape of your fattest family member, who, in my case, was Uncle Morris, who was at least 400 lbs, and always wore faded blue work pants, huge farmer suspenders, a thin white T shirt with a pocket, and huge brown glasses that 75 year old Vermont men named Morris are required to have. Proof that aluminum lawn chairs were close to indestructable was found everytime Uncle Morris sat down after eating 7 ears of corn, 3 pork chops, 23 dinner rolls, and 3 slices of pie, washed down with 2 gallons of lemonade.

A few years ago the Shytown Tribune wrote: “The book “Aluminum by Design” says the lawn chair was “one of the most popular chairs ever manufactured.” But not everyone was satisfied. By the early 1990s, some lawn chair buyers were opting for stackable one-piece plastic models that didn’t rust or blow away like web chairs.” (Chicago Tribune, August 2001)

Why use something that is sturdy, good looking, and folds into your trunk when you could by something horribly ugly, made in China, that breaks the minute you look at it with a cheeze dog in your hand, and tips over and snaps when ever you lean back to whistle at a girl. Let me relate a recent event that demonstrates how utterly craptastic white plastic lawn chairs are: I was strolling downtown the other day, and saw five guys sitting in plastic lawn chairs outside of a pita restaurant. They were apparently asking a girl ‘why was she so hot?’ and her response was odd enough to make one of the guys lean back to roll his eyes. ‘The reason I’m so hot is cause I’m 14 and I’ve played sports since I was 4.’ Needless to say, this poor guy leaned back while rolling his eyes, not more than 3.25 centimeters. The back legs of the chair buckled and the chair snapped, shooting out from under him, landing him on his head, hard. The fact that these chairs havnt been indemnified constitutes a major lapse of reason and loss of opportunity in our litigeous society.

My search for an alumium lawn chair has taken me to Lowes, Dick’s, Target, and a local grocery store. Yet to try: yard sales, James Starmer’s parents garage, and the local hardware store (we still have a great and expansive local hardware store, complete with a deli and lunch counter and a non-sensical organization system.)

Ebay has them though, going at anywhere from 34-100 dollars, used. These aren’t NOS, never Uncle Morris’ed chairs. They are not signed by the inventor of the slinky, nor are they Schlitz approved. I’ll do ebay though, if it comes to it. I refuse to pay 32.99 for a chair in a bag, that comes in one of 6 boring colors, guarentees a weird concave manner of sitting, has individual legs that sink into the ground, weighs at least 3 more pounds than a lawn chair of yore, and comes in a bag. What the crap? A bag? What exactly is that for? To throw up in after you realize you threw your real lawn chair for this horrible Faux-Bauhaus chinese misshap? I know what I need when I sit in a lawn chair: two cup holders. I prefer my beer in hand, where it is more convient to drink from. Also, some even have a head rest and foot rest. I don’t have chairs in my house that have any of those features.

Classic lawn chairs were comfortable: they promoted a relaxed but good posture, and they were made out of thin nylon meshed webbing. That made them breathable. Aluminum lawn chairs were so comfortable that my highly arthritic grandfather ‘PopPop’ (the exact capitialization of his name was never clarified to me) who could only sit in huge over-stuffed recliners that he routinely sleep whole nights in, sat happily in aluminum chairs for hours, simultaneously reading a book, watering the flowers, and drinking a substantially sized vodka and orange juice ’screwdriver’, apparently circumventing the doctors’ orders of one drink a day by making that one drink 24 ozs, with 23 of those being vodka from some dubious plastic bottle under the sink.

Aluminum chairs were stylish. They came in all sorts of colors, and patterns. Nothing, my friends, is more stylish than plaid in the summer, especially pink and white plaid. Lets face it: color choices like maroon, navy blue, dark blue, and dark red arnt choices Red blooded Americans are supposed to make.

Nothing beats brown, olive and gold and white and black plaid.

Folding bag chairs look like failed Russian attempts at American ideas. Khrushchev, coming to America, says to Kennedy: ‘These lawn chairs would not hold up to Siberian beaches. Russian peasants would destroy them! Here: let me show you a real chair!’ and he pulls out a chair in a bag. It looks just like what Soviet scientists would make in response to superior American chair technology: over-engineered, but not well, heavy, breakable, and in consistently drab colors, as if to say: you might take this to the beach, but you are not allow to enjoy it in anyway.

Interestingly, the lawn chair was preceeded by perhaps an even nicer chair, with even more potential colors, and the added benefit of using all natural materials.  The humble and forgotten except for Fellini flicks deck chair.  The deck chair was really nice: fully adjustable, wood and cotten, collapsable, and very Parisian Oceanliner looking.  I don’t have any family memories involving deck chairs, but I once was in an ancient, 1920s spa town hotel that had them scattered around the pool.  But they also had marble columns and fake grecian statues.

This deck chair seems to have a nylon seat, pity!

Rode to Arlington in the 90 plus heat on Saturday for my second straight weekend of pro-crit race action at the CSC Invitational. Bobby Julich was riding, but race itself was a vastly less kewl spot to chill than Bike Jam was so we didn’t stay long. Here’s a few shots of the racing action and some of the radder lugged rigs we saw.



Love the way the “sky blue” Michelins match with the blue and white diamond pattern on this guy’s sick Rolls saddle.

UPDATE: Garrett has more: here and here.

_
Verča starts a new job in a week.
The new employment isn’t accessible by tram and the bus takes 45+min in rush hour.
So she is going to have to ride to work, what a shame.
I mapped out and pre-rode a course for her.
It’s an awesome combination of back alleys, paved paths, urban singletrack, and a big park with fast dirt, gravel, and paved trails (and some stunts on the side if you’re looking for a detour.) Hell, it even has a mini zoo and a couple of beer gardens.

first you hop on the path through some shady concrete walls.

then a nice paved pedestrian path along a little creek, the Botič

you cross our main tram line and follow the Botič for a little longer, even though the path is long abandoned. note: the beer garden sign to the right. and its even Gambrinus, Verča’s favorite.

then slide past the gate into the train yards property, ie. no cars allowed.

hop the curb onto urban singletrack (and past some squatting on the left.)

up another dead-end street that happens to let bikes through and you are to….

a bridge over the highway with…

a sweet helical ramp at the end of it. these are actually pretty common here.

That’s about half of the distance in photos, then you are in the park and on trails for the rest of the way. I’ll take some general pics next time I’m over there with a camera.

It took me 40min stopping to take pictures and about 20 couple to get home.
I think I am going to ride to work with her everyday and then come home and work.
It’ll be a nice start to the day.

(ed’s: also it looks like one more try and I’ll have it linked by dirt to the Točna trails.)

OK, back to work, I mean if even we have to over here!
-C&V

Bicycle robber hits Hardees-Red Burrito in Bloomington

Another SoCal Innovation: The Bicycle By Shooting

NYC Woman charged with running boyfriend over with SUV

Man Stabbed Teen Over Bicycle

It’s a crime to look this good

so cory taught me this wrapping technique when we were living together in france interning at alex singer. he claimed to have taugh alex himself. while this may be doubious, what is sure is that nobody freestyles better than mr singer, and nobody can reach a falsetto as high or as clear as cory’s. now, while the bagettes are still warm, let me proceed with my tale.

ahh, the seine had never smelled so sweet that night cory took me into the shop and taught me what it meant to be a man. er… by that i mean how to wrap bars with the godly hand of perfection. first off, dont trust bar plugs unless they are champagne corks or hand crafted out of burled walnut by a guy named “kauf”. start at the end of the bar, but dont tuck any in, as per above picture.

proceed up the bar, keeping shit tight and shit. pull harder than you think you should, but not enough to tear something. thats what cory whispered in my ear. in french so it sounded straight.

as you approach the lever, panic. did you prewrap the lever with that little bit of tape they give you? i did, sucker! clark cycles, represent! also, have some precut 4 inch pieces of electric tape stuck to the top tube for easy access. also large scissors. or a blade of some sort. cut the tape with enough of a tail to kind of tape down under the hood.

see what i mean? ok run some electric tape all the way around the lever. it likes to stick to itself best.

now start on the top side of the bars, wrapping backward. now you see why this is dope. non-showing electric tape, da.

bring it back down and get those scissors ready for the time of their life!

same proceedure as before. leave enough of a tail to tuck and tape. tape it good now.

quasi close up of the tape job. i bet you can smell the seine as you read this now. i didnt wash my hands for weeks after that night.

apply shellac, of the amber tint, carefully and cognatively. mainly carefully. 3 coats will do, 30 minutes or one Mon Claire A Von Whure album between coats.

what a wonderful night. we finished the evening with some PBR and crepes.

*disclaimer. cory is as far as i know not french, although he is a COMMIE DEFECTOR.

**cory didnt teach me this. the river seine did.

_
So I ran out this afternoon (31May, so yesterday now) for a short ride.
Mountain on the Gerber. (curious to see how long it lasts… I’m knocking on wood btw!)

First off, just cause your tires can run 10bars (145psi) doesn’t mean you can. That was the chattery-est 10 minutes riding evar! I stopped and dropped down to 7bars (105psi) and was much happier on the cobbles.

Second I came onto the scene where a guy in a Jetta leaving a gas station just hit a cyclist crossing the drive on a bike path. Everyone was OK and there were witnesses who spoke the same language, so I rolled on. The Jetta had a pretty f-ed up hood and the cyclist was a pretty tough looking guy on a townie and walking fine with no blood. (I am always cautious at this spot, it’s on almost every ride, and seeing the aftermath of this was not at all surprising.)

Third I saw a wild horse. Actually I was riding some farm road doubletrack, and some lady must have let go of the lead cause a horse bucked up and hopped onto the trail from behind a row of trees about 50m in front of me. I stopped and let the lady sort out her business and she was grateful after she caught her horse.

Apparently my camera’s batteries were dead, but I got one field shot anyway.

Other than that I wandered around a bit, rode around 50km, and found a bunch of new singletrack in the Točna area. It was about 1/3 horse trails I think but nice trail nonetheless and it was well blazed. Eventually I wandered back onto the road and hooked up with Verča’s commute to her new job. Which goes through a cool park, where I smoked a bunch of mountain bikers on single and doubletrack. When will they ever realize that those wide knobby tires, riser bars, effective braking systems, and suspension just slow you down.

(editor’s note: after looking at a map at home, I was wandering a LOT. I was a bit curious how I got so much riding while technically not leaving our quarter. But I was actually riding in circles almost trying to connect the Točna riding with Verča’s work. I did ultimately get it, but I have a better game plan for my next attempt, ie. a map.)

And I’ll say it again, you gots to ride on the tops here. Anything else and all the jarring road surfaces will make sure your hands leave the bars quickly and to disastrous effects.

OK ride safe.
-Cory

_
The forecasted weather had threatened rain all week-end, so Verča and I were happy to see sunny skies and a clear forecast when we awoke on Saturday (26May). We drove about 35km out of town ESE to a little village called Žernovka and parked on the side of the road.
I found a nice mud hole in a dip on one of the first sections of singletrack. Verča wisely went around it.

We rode for 5 hours on singletrack and doubletrack north through dry pine forest and open blooming fields and back south along a couple of stream beds on slippery logging roads and damp rocky fir forested singletrack.

the field.

my smart-ass wife.

our token self portrait.

an old stone/brick/stuccoed building showed us the way.

some other old building, not really showing us the way.

Verča in the wetter fir forest.

We searched for while on top of this hill for a while to find ruins of an old castle until we decided that the mark on the map probably meant that it was where a castle had once been. The ground was definitely altered by man to build something there, but all that remained was a flat spot and some rock out croppings (and remnants of a recent campfire.) We took a break, a better picture and were on our way.

This was probably my favorite ride where we picked up the map and just picked an area and followed the dotted lines on the map, not knowing where we were really headed. It had only one section of searching through annoyingly tall and scratchy grass for the trail, one 2km section of open road. The rest was trail, with a couple of short sections where you hop on the road just to roll through a town or something. 90%+ off road is a big deal here.

It even ended with about 5km of fast swooping bluestone fire road covered with pine needles.

A nice day. Sunny and cool. 75 degrees. And about 70 km.

Off to the summer house tomorrow afternoon to mow the grass and trim the hedges.
Go ride your bike!
-Cory and Veronika

_
this highly scientific venture should only be undertaken if you dont have a job, dont value time, effort or results, and you have lots of files, sanders, and strips of oak lying around. also: need at least 4 beers, preferably really hoppy so the flavor cuts the taste of sawdust in the air. also: an NPR station that only plays classical helps, as does a penchant for getting excited about things that barely work, and need endless fiddling to make function.

read on fair reader!

i started with two pieces of oak, that i sandwiched together using woodglue. let that dry for about 2 beers.

then i glued my stencil to the board, just sanding it off later. i made my stencil shorter than the suntour shifter, which i later realized was a bad move.

i then cut out the bulk of the negative space with a hack saw.

using 6 files, a random orbital sander, and my teeth, i was able to get the shape down pretty fast.

i did a bit of hand sanding as well, as the shape started to get finalized.

almost done. needs some more sanding and filing. and shellacing.

ok there it is! it actually works fine. as good as the other one at least. i had to continually tighten the shifter onto the DT boss and shift it, to grind out room for a steel washer in the back. it worked, and looks nice even. under that suntour plate there is a small brass washer. i think i’d like to make a set on the cnc out of some cooler wood. this mission oak kinda looks like something a crappy furniture maker would make.