Moving To A New Host

I'm slowly transitioning everything from here to a new host. All the bike stuff, art and graphic design, music... From now on it's all going to be found at nshanemartin.com

Today's Trail Musings

I swapped out my Egg Beaters for platforms as a way to change things up. Bad move. Floppy shoes and no foot retention have made for a very long, rough seven miles. Egg Beaters are getting swapped back post haste.

In an effort to save some tread on my cx tires I replaced them with Schwalbe Marathons. The weight and size increase made things worse. I'll be swapping those back after supper.

Mmm, food.

Had a weird conversation with a homeless guy. Wasn't weird because he was homeless but because it was on the subject of the prehistory of the GT triple triangle.

He knew things about GT I did not know. Frantic Googling began as he left to return to the shelter and before I forgot the things he said. It all checked out.

Year End Top 20 List

Time to make my year end lists like a good lil’ Capricorn. This years lists are brought to you by Last.fm charts and a good deal of Spotify listening. They’re not exactly what I expected but the lists got skewed a good deal by a certain playlist that got heavy rotation.

My average listening was the poppy-er rock and punk but I really started delving into the hardcore, doom and “stoner” rock genres more so this year. This is mostly because of my search for my long lost bass tone. Trap Them’s “Day Thirteen: The Protest Hour” is a good example.

Anyway, on with the goods.

TRACKS

1. Alkaline Trio – Clavicle
2. Midtown – Your Love
3. Alkaline Trio – Do You Wanna Know
4. Hey Mercedes – Haven’t Been This Happy
5. New Found Glory – The Promise
6. MXPX – Move To Bremerton
7. Weezer – (If You’re Wondering…) I Want You To
8. Nada Surf – Enjoy The Silence
9. Guided By Voices – Hold On Hope
10. Braid – Always Something There To Remind Me
11. Black Tusk – This Time Is Divine
12. Metallica – For Whom The Bell Tolls
13. Weekend Nachos – Hometown Hero
14. Car Bomb – The Sentinel
15. Narrows – Chambered
16. Burnt By The Sun – There Will Be Blood
17. Lift To Experience
18. The Paper Chase – We Know Where You Sleep
19. Goatsnake – Knucklebuster
20. Trap Them – Day 13: The Protest Hour

ALBUMS

1. Descendents – Everything Sucks
2. Descendents – Two Things At Once
3. The Joy Formidable – The Big Roar
4. Silversun Pickups – Carnavas
5. Red Fang – Murder The Mountains
6. Silversun Pickups – Swoon
7. Alkaline Trio – Alkaline Trio
8. NOFX – Punk In Drublic
9. Braid – Movie Music Vol. 2
10. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
11. Hey Mercedes – Loses Control
12. The Promise Ring – Wood Water
13. The Get Up Kids – Eudora
14. Alkaline Trio – Remains
15. Alkaline Trio – Agony & Irony
16. Girl Talk – Night Ripper
17. Alkaline Trio – Goddammit
18. Alkaline Trio – Maybe I’ll Catch Fire
19. Braid – Lucky To Be Alive
20. Doomriders – Darkness Comes Alive

ARTISTS

1. Alkaline Trio
2. Braid
3. The Promise Ring
4. Descendents
5. Silversun Pickups
6. The Joy Formidable
7. Hey Mercedes
8. Primus
9. The Get Up Kids
10. Coheed and Cambria
11. Red Fang
12. NOFX
13. Sunny Day Real Estate
14. Weezer
15. Girl Talk
16. Nerf Herder
17. Big Kids
18. Trap Them
19. Fucked Up
20. The Melvins

From looking at this years list and those of years past I make this deduction: I really listen to a lot of the same music over and over and over.

My New Year’s Resolution: I will listen to a wider variety of music.

Follow me on Twitter @nshanemartin for bike talk, bitching about music and design and screen print junk.

Music Monday

Top Ten Artists

1. Truckfighters
2. Fucked Up
3. Sunny Day Real Estate
4. Primus
5. Braid
6. Alkaline Trio
7. Coheed and Cambria
8. Kool Moe Dee
9. Smashing Pumpkins
10. Hey Mercedes

Top Ten Albums

1. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
2. Truckfighters – Gravity X
3. Truckfighters – Phi
4. Truckfighters – Hidden Treasures Of Fuzz
5. Kool Moe Dee – Knowledge Is King
6. Urban Dance Squad – Mental Floss For The Globe
7. Thursday – Full Collapse
8. Sunny Day Real Estate – Live
9. Prong – Prove You Wrong
10. Fugazi – Red Medicine

Top Ten Tracks

1. Third Eye Blind – Graduate
2. Sunny Day Real Estate – J’nuh
3. Truckfighters – Desert Cruiser
4. Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Follow You Into The Dark
5. Fucked Up – Queen Of Hearts
6. Herbie Hancock – Rockit
7. Pantera – Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills
8. Pantera – Strength Beyond Strength
9. Alkaline Trio – Bleeder
10. INXS – Need You Tonight

Weird Bike Wednesday

Racing Tricycles? What the hell.

Well I’ll be damned, apparently it is a thing. A thing that dates back to the 1920’s according to http://www.tricycleassociation.org.uk/ and still happens today. It’s even kept up with the technology.

I’ve never been on one of these sweet rides but I imagine I’ll try to track down an even when I make a trip to Wales. In the meantime here’s some links to conversion kits and a few pictures of the best/worst of the best/worst.

http://www.trykit.com/

http://www.bikecare.co.uk/tribike.html

http://www.trikezilla.com/

 

Example of it being a thing.

 

Fixed gear, track trike?

So gross. So very, very gross.

 

You know what? Some where, there’s a girl that will ride this with me. She’s probably off somewhere yelling “ON YOUR LEFT!!1”

 

Reverse trike mixte with disc brakes.

I guess when I get old and can’t balance a bike this will be my preferred ride. Maybe not in the lavender though.

 

Weird Bike Wednesday

Time for more weird bikes, trawled from the depths of the interwebs.

It’s so very close but still so far to go. I love these Peugeot frames. I like the idea of the deep v’s but green? I’m going with green on my Peugeot but the frame is a collection of fall colors and the green will actually be complementary. Bullhorns at an awkward angle? Yellow chain? I’m ok with the yellow tires because I’m running yellow tires. It works with the Peugeot stripe color scheme. Kudos on two brakes!


This bike made it to a bike show display with that stem setup? Trim it. What is going on with those wheels? I’m sure there is some aero theory to them but they are just fugly. My research (Google > Passoni bike > Wheels, extensive research) tells me that there are only TEN sets of these wheels made. Thank god.


What. The. Hell. I’m guessing an internal geared hub in the back, but why the pie plate/dork disc? Seat tube all the way out. Stem way up. Handlebars at a goofy angle. No bar plugs? Don’t wreck or risk taking a plug out of you. Looks like a nice set of polished fenders. Someone was proud enough of this to pose it on top of a table to take a picture of it…or we’re they trolling? I can almost see this as a good city beater with some minor adjustments for the right sized person.

Weird Bike Wednesday

Every week I trawl the internet hoping to catch a few fine specimens of the “weird bike.” Every week I find the weirdest shit and distill it down and present it you. I”ll shut up now and get to the pics.

We got some kind of badass here. Wheel/tire/brake combo off a sport bike. Seriously, have fun losing races to slugs.

Someone please find photo or video evidence of this “bike” being ridden. They took the time to weld it up so there had to be some sort of proof that it can be used.