Lawn Mower Fail « FAIL Blog: Epic Fail Pictures and Videos of Owned, Pwnd and Fail Moments

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so we had a super good turn out for the scramble.  dave got points for driving the furthest to get here.  phil got points for riding a bike that would give a cory townie a run for its money (crappynesswise).  way to many people showed up on fixed gears and kicked ass on them.  joe, jay, john (sort of) jason and phil were all punished the roads with their insanity.  there were, if i recall, 9 flats, 4 of which happened to Rob and two of which happened to Damien.  Is that right?  Or were there more?  We made it home before blinky lights were needed, but not by too much.

Dave took pictures, which he hasnt posted on Flickr yet, so did John (same thing) but Joe has some up here.

I hope everyone had as good of a time as I did, pain aside.  That said, I rode the next day and felt 90 percent OK.

I want to not feel OK next time.  I want to be groveling on the side of the road.  To that end, I propose a mega monster ride for october.  That gives you almost two months to lay off the sauce and ride a bunch.  We could split the ride over two days, but where’s the suffering in that proposal?

I’m thinking sort of an expanded dirty sugar ferry ride, to include much more dirt and plenty of more excuses to get flats.  there would be no singletrack, but just alot of farm roads and potholes.  120 miles.  It’s totally doable.  We’d have to start early, and we’d definately end after dark.

here’s a link to the proposed ride route.  

Go ahead and call me crazy.  There will mad amounts of dirt.  Or you will be mad about the amount of dirt.  Check it against the dirt road database.  There is more dirt than pavement, almost. I’d say at least 40 solid miles of dirt.  Let’s say October 26th for now.   Image from last year’s Ferry Ride here.

Maybe someone knows someone’s yard we can sleep in down that way.

Not really sure what to say about this one. weird?

TRIP NOTES: The Three Stages of Breakfast « Fishing Jones

Try doing that with turkey bacon! Johnson and I perfected this technique in vermont with a slight change. If memory serves me (which it usually doesn’t) we would fry english muffins in the bacon grease in order to make breakfast sandwiches that could raise the dead and then kill them again with a heart attack.

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Mel has been riding some sugino xd 500s for a while now, but for some reason, no matter what, they get chain suck. not every ride, not every shift, but sometimes it happens. And its not her fault. I rode it and the same thing sporatically happens to me. What gives? Changed the rings, changed the chain… She knows how to shift… Anyway, I have been planning on getting rich and buying her either the white industries road double or a pair of TA cranks, set up as a wide range double. That would be minimum 200 bucks though, 200 bucks I dont have. Unless my couch is holding out on me.

Anyway, digging and shooting shit at freeze thaw the other day, and ran across some SR apex cranks. Never heard of them. Minor interweb research led me to believe they were introduced around 1980-1981, had a short market life, and the world moved onto the soon to be standard 11o BCD we all know and sort of love.

here they are, prior to some time with some polish and steel wool, and they still have all 3 rings

118 BCD, came stock with 48/46/28 rings, looked to have a low Q, used standard bolts, standard crank puller, SR made them so they were probally cold forged… nice finish and low wear despite the years in a dust pile. I traded a salsa stem for them, made them a wide range 46/28 double, and slapped them on Mel’s Atlantis.

they look sharp I think. more elegant than the sugino cranks. lighter, lower q.

Ahh lower Q factor. Mel doesnt really know or care about Q factor. But we went for a ride yesterday, and she said something like “why does my bike feel so fast?” also, perhaps more bizarre: “why do i feel more stretched out?” well, didnt know Q did that…. But check out the tread photo:

if this were the 1990s, and it was a basketball game and not a bike part set up thing, and you had made a basket from say, 3 yards beyond the 3 point line, you would say booyah.

OK what else?

Sorry, this post will just go on and on and on and on.

Mel hasnt been on a mtn bike for a while. Last summer. Like me. I suck, I bet she does too. Logs? Ahhhh! Ok so we took a cue from Rob’s Christine course. And set up some obstacles.

start with a rock garden. rock and brick garden that is. you cant not hit some rocks, its a good thing.

log. not big, not small, just right.

log pile with easy finish. for now.

really annoying square edged stutter bumps. ratchet pedal. ratchet!

tiny north shore thing. for balance and confidence building. ends in a drop off.

said drop off. note quality construction.

ends with a teeter totter. easy, but fun. to come: bigger logs, more rocks, a jump. Mel likes jumping.

What else?

Our power went out a while ago, and I decided to try to make an olive oil lamp. I used a tiny glass jar, a rag for a wick, olive oil, and a coat hanger. It worked pretty well, for a while. Then I dont think the kink in my hanger was tight enough. The flame just kept creeping closer to the olive oil.

would cino cinelli hate on me?

I’ve been working on yard salads: using mostly stuff from the yard to put in wraps, have for dinner, etc. I have added dandilion greens now, but this is what i generally use.

I’ve been reworking some images into quadtone images. Here is a sample image, in quadtone and a link to the flickr gallery where more live.

Holy cow: Walking consumes more gasoline than driving! | Brad Ideas

I’m a little offended that he didn’t include segways in his analysis. I’m also suprised that he’s the chairman of the EFF.

Biking’s better. The average-diet cyclist is getting 85 miles per gallon of fossil fuel. Still better for 2 to share a Prius. The beefeater is, as before only 1/4 as good. At 21mpg he’s better than a Hummer, but not that much better.

Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery

Not quite as many stereotypes as I had hoped for but still kind of funny.

Ride Update!  Jan 26, 10 am, at the Sugarloaf/Foot o’ the mtn stonghold parking lot place.  I’ve made a revised and more accurate map, that still shows the mileage to be sub 50, and the climbing to be negligible.  I have added what appear to be more dirt roads, more roads without real names, and more instructions like turn at the pond with island and the big tree.  it’ll be like a scavenger hunt, with the prize being ‘getting home before its dark’.  we’ll have lunch somewhere, so pack one, and toe warmers, and noggin protectors, and all that, if its going to be cold.  it appears the ferry charge is MAX 4 dollars.  I bet its less, for bikers.

Car pool people, if’ns ya can.

ok, we havnt had a really long ride in over 2 months. obviously, we are all even more out of shape than we were before we ate that kilo of fudge, 2.1 gallons of nog, and 36 new years toasts.

i have a ride proposal for either next weekend or two weekends after that. a ride from sugar loaf into VA and back, 50 miles, less than 2300 ft of climbing. thats nothing. thats like walking to the mail box. thats like playing cards with your grandmother. thats like chef bouyarde’s tomato sauce.

here’s the link: look at that ride profile. its like the current housing market. its like pat boone singing tutti fruiti. its like vanilla pudding with a plastic spoon.

ok, so how about it? it’ll be fun. you get to ride a boat. you get to go to VA. you get to ride on dirt roads. ditch the kids! ditch the husband! ditch your coke habit so you can pay for the gas!

holla back if your interested and shit and shit. i vote for the last weekend in jan. pick a date. we’ll have lunch. we’ll have dinner. we’ll have flats, broken frames, and cold fingers! we’ll have a half century of rolling hills. we’ll smell cow shit. we’ll look like dip shits. we’ll ford a stream. maybe. i cant really remember where that stream crossing is.

shit i gotta go: i’m on reserve battery power, yo!

So i haven’t been riding much. The weather has been British, and the motivation leaches out of my pores like the black sweats of the hippo. There is no better way to get back on the bike than to make a list of asinine things to bring for a short ride: 3 pairs of gloves, a jacket and undershirt in reserve, 2 hats, newtons, (hippie variety) a sandwich, a 1932 Kodak brownie camera aka my pen cam, ect ect. Lists son fantasticas. Lists, on their own, exist as open texts onto which we can project personalized events, each with its own particular narrative. Look at any list, say a list like this: 6 apps: GS, 1 bro, can tom, Italian.

What can we get from that? I would say any number of things. Each interpretation is significant because it has A. personal significance, B. an infinite number of possibilities or interpretations can emerge from a fixed series of words and numbers, (unlike, say a series of numbers like a phone number, where we are at the mercy of a finite series of combinations) and C. thru the combination of A+B we reach possibilités infinies for potential narratives. 6 apples: Granny Smith, 1 Broccoli Head, a Can of Tomatoes, and a loaf of Italian bread. Or is it 6 appliances, or applications. When the 6 is hand written readings change: could the 6 be read as an upper-case G? This multiplies the interpretations by 100 percent. Can Tom do it? Cancel Tomorrow? Cancel what? The Italian Dinner?

Lists are open stories, stories that are completed by the writer and the reader, independently of each other. Even the straight forward list is deceptively and infinitely variable, not only on the part of the reader but also the writer, who, often are the same person. Par exemple: 6 granny smith apples, 1 broccoli head, a can of tomatoes and an italian loaf of bakery bread accurately describes a series of items that most grocery stores would have. Most Farmers markets would as well, as would a series of small speciality shops and road side stands. The narrative and possibilities for narrative travel do not end at mere location selection, but carry over to moods, brand possiblities and financial restraints, physical restraints (is so and so allergic to apples, ect). When we choose a product from our list, we are thinking about all of these things in a uniquely personal and narrative driven way. We are thinking about what we will prepare with said ingredients, how they will be received, the social signifiers of brand x over brand q.

Bike lists do the same thing and more. “Rain Gear” gives us the hiss of tires of on wet pavement, the reaction of others as it starts raining and you pull out the only rain coat among 10 people, projecting forward we think about the ride after it has finished, and how much that rain gear has helped, or that it didn’t rain at all and but it was dragged in a sack with 10 other unused things for 43 miles.

Taken at 2.13 on an overcast day: f/2.8-1/125-ISO 200. My brownie has been acting up recently. Hence the too dark fore-ground.

The cows looked like they had mud socks on. They were definitely out in their wooly winter coats.

The pond in Linden Hall. It was partially frozen and quite fetching. f/5.6-1/250-ISO 200

The scenic drainage from above pond.

Rock Hill School House. They have raised 75,000 of 100,000 dollars to needed to restore it. I hope it becomes something useful, like an artists studio, or a pencil sharpening store.

I had lunch in this grave yard; off in the distance 3 big horses chased each other around. That big white house is abandoned. Gimme.

Ok so that’s my ride. It was nice enough out, although a bit overcast.