Weird Bike Wednesday

In this Weird Bike Wednesday, it’s only the best of the best in the Time Trial Commuter category. Somewhere, someone was late to work because they didn’t have a set of carbon wheels, or TT bars. Maybe their areo tuck wasn’t tucked enough? What the need is a TT Commuter. Racks, Zipps, lights, aero cross section everything!

I am a firm believer in the “do what you can, with what you have, where you are” motto but damn. The disc wheel, dynamo, shoulder carry bag, clip ons on flat bars, fender. So dreamy!

Fixed gear, step through frame and time trial bars. Let’s make babies!

I wanted to think this was a piss take but the fenders fit close and the brakes are correctly placed. “Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam... “

I see where I think this one was going but it came up short. I can only guess it was a Paris-Roubaix wannabe. The RockShox P-R is the giveaway, but the mismatched wheels and rack ruin it. TTCommuter.

Coors Light and a Pomeranian in the rack on the flat bars. Spinergy.

Winrar!

Music Monday

My schedule is so screwy I’m changing Top 10 Tuesday to Music Monday. Eff it, eff it right in the a. So here it is.

Top 10 Artists

1. Future of the Left
2. Red Fang
3. Primus
4. The Promise Ring
5. Fucked Up
6. Alkaline Trio
7. Hey Mercedes
8. The Get Up Kids
9. Girl Talk
10. Big Kids

Top 10 Albums

1. Future of the Left – The Plot Against Common Sense
2. Future of the Left – Travels With Myself and Another
3. Red Fang – Murder The Mountains
4. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
5. Red Fang – Red Fang
6. Future of the Left – Polymers Are Forever
7. Hey Mercedes – Loses Control
8. The Get Up Kids – Eudora
9. Girl Talk – Night Ripper
10. Big Kids – Phone Home

Top 10 Tracks

1. Red Fang – Prehistoric Dog
2. Red Fang – Wires
3. Red Fang – Hank Is Dead
4. Dire Straits – Romeo And Juliet (What happened here?)
5. Future of the Left – Anchor
6. Foo Fighters – February Stars
7. Refused – New Noise
8. Incubus – Vitamin
9. Alkaline Trio – Goodbye Forever
10. Filter – Welcome To The Fold

Sometimes an oddity will creep in, such as Romeo and Juliet.

As usual, most tracks scrobbled to Last.fm from Spotify. Others through Winamp for Windows or Android mobile.

State Of The Commute Address

It’s hot.

Well, it was hot for about two weeks. Then the day before it cooled off I decided to meet a friend for a shopping extravaganza. On the way there, my rear end felt a little swishy, squishy, bouncy. Quick look down showed me a nearly flat tire. Get to destination and look it over and decide I’ll pop across the street afterwards and give it a fill up.

When I came out after shopping it was absolutely flat. Rim on the ground. In all of my bags, trunk bag, panniers, seat bag, and back pack I didn’t have a single patch or tube. An hour later my pick up arrived to take me and the bike home.

Upon arrival I discovered a wayward spoke. After closer inspection I discovered a second broken spoke directly across the hub. This makes approximately 20 spokes I’ve broken in the last two and a half years. Either I’m too fat for 32 spoke rims or the roads are just that bad around here. The GT is getting a 48 spoke single speed rear, just as soon as I find a decent 26” rim. The Peugeot is getting heavier gauge spokes and some kind of deep-V rim for a little added strength. Weight is really of no concern.

Moral of the story: I’ll be carrying an extra spoke or two and where the hell is my patch kit? Guess I’ll be picking up one next time I’m by the LBS. Also, backup water bottles and a spare shirt are a must when the temperature goes above 90 degrees.

The motorists have been fairly well adjusted lately, only yelling the standards: “ride on the sidewalk, that’s where bikes belong” and “fuck off dirty hippy.”

1983 Raleigh Olympian Restoration

A new project has come through my door. It’s been many months coming but with the assistance of our local ride crew I found a bike for my friend. As of now it just looks like an old road bike. The plans are to make it look like an old road bike, but clean. Aside from that it might get a fresh set of decals and some contrast paint on the lugs.

[Here it is in all of its glory]

To do list:

1. Clean All The Parts!!!1
2. New tires/tubes/rim strips
3. Fresh bar tape
4. New (old stock) brake levers
5. Paint lug edges (maybe)
6. Fresh decals (maybe)
7. New chain
8. New saddle
9. Handlebar bag

Top 10 Thursday

Moving the top 10 list to Thursday this week. Go a little sidetracked with bicycle related activities and just plain forgot to do it. So here it is, better late than never.

Top 10 Artists

1. Braid
2. Pantera
3. Lightning Bolt
4. Descendents
5. Primus
6. The Promise Ring
7. Silversun Pickups
8. The Get Up Kids
9. Smashing Pumpkins
10. Prong

Top 10 Albums

1. Pantera – Far Beyond Driven
2. Descendents – Everything Sucks
3. Prong – Prove You Wrong
4. Lightning Bolt- Hypermagic Mountain
5. Silversun Pickups – Carnavas
6. Braid – Movie Music vol. 2
7. Descendents – Two Things At Once
8. Meat Puppets – Too High To Die
9. Adventures of Jet – Muscle
10. Rites of Spring – S/T

Top 10 Tracks

1. Don Henley – The Boys of Summer
2. Pantera – 5 Minutes Alone
3. Smashing Pumpkins – Ava Adore
4. Morphine – Dawna
5. Braid – A Dozen Roses
6. Braid – You’re Lucky To Be Alive
7. Coyote Shivers – Sugar High
8. Paul Westerberg – Dyslexic Heart
9. Primus – Puddin’ Taine
10. Prong - Irrelevant Thoughts

Reference: Nearly all of my playcounts come from Spotify. The remainder come from the small amount of music that I keep on my phone. All playcounts are tracked by last.fm. These are not opinion based top 10 lists, they are straight by the numbers. Often times my favorite tracks of the week don’t make the list.

Weird Bike Wednesday

Bringing you the weird, the wtf and the “well, huh…”

“What I think I’ll do is start a fire in front of my bike. Should make it look more extreme.

I’ve complained about the saddle on my McFixie an awful lot lately but this bike absolutely wins the worst saddle category. And that lightweight, recyclable top tube. But what happened to the handlebars?

If you’re going to flip the bars that far just go ahead and make them full on felon bars. This bike has to be too large for it’s owner for the seat to be down that far.

A Nimbus 2000 it is not, but that steering mechanism looks like it just might work.

Back in the late 80’s some bike riders got the idea to recreate Formula One racing, on two wheels. Somewhat flat track, left and right turns. Here’s one example of the bikes that came out of that time:

I had an opportunity to ride one of these in my youth. Basically it was a 20” bmx bike, wheel covers, drop stem with flat bars, a huge chain ring and a wide range cassette thrown in for good measure. Oh yeah, and a body kit the likes of which wouldn’t be seen again until The Fast and The Furious. The bikes were fast but super awkward to ride. The racing was done in such tight quarters that the wrecks were more fantastic than the motorsport equivalent.

Which brings us to these nostalgia monsters:

This one obviously has aspirations of becoming a Cat6 Formula One Commuter racer…somewhere very dark.

It’s just bad. I heard it was solid bondo and added nearly 60 pounds to the already heavy BSO. Any aero qualities were negated by the serious obesity of this piece. But it gets better. Look closely at the hubs, they’re green. The pedals? Also green. Cranks too! Someone took the time to attempt to color match this. OVERKILL!!!

I’m going to quit bitching about other peoples bikes and go spend some time with mine. If you got one, ride one.

Weird Bike Wednesday

Another Weird Bike Wednesday coming your way. I mean, look at these shits! Two-wheeled trainwrecks, the lot. Also, it’s Saturday and I’m off schedule. I’ll be bringing you more in just a few days.

Geared, track bike, fenders, flat bars, 650/700 funnybike.

Full suspension mountain bike frame, disc/road wheels, suspension seat post. Wat?

Lured me in with nice welds, bare steel, foot retention, overall sedate look. Then, put on what amounts to no handle bars. I mean, tightest of gaps.

Another full suspension WTF’er. This time with megaspoke low rider bike wheels. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

I just threw up in my own eyes.

For when you absolutely have to Zipp down to the corner store as fast as possible.