Who to watch out for.

The worst drivers in town are on the street that passes in front of Wal-mart. Rude, unyielding, ignorant. Downright dangerous. One of them pulled up behind me at the stoplight exiting the parking lot and leaned on his horn. After he passed me (horn blaring) I chased him down and leaned on his car at the next red light. He opened his window and said, “get your hand off my car.”
I said, “what’s your problem?”
He said, “don’t you know, bicyclists are supposed to ride on the right hand side of the road.” And he pulls out his cell phone. Points it right at me, like he’s gonna shoot me with it or something.
I said, “no, you’ve got that wrong. I can ride anywhere in the right lane I want. The whole lane is mine. The WHOLE LANE. If you doubt that, you can go to the public library and look it up in the code.”
He said, “get your hand off my car or I’m calling the polics.”
I said, “why don’t you go ahead now and call the police?”
He said something else.
I said, “call the police. RIGHT NOW.”
He said something else.
I said, “CALL THE POLICE OR I WILL.”
Then the light turned green and he honked his horn again and got out of there.
I got his license number, but by the time I got home, it’s like, “whatever.”

Another one was entering the roundabout a block east of Wal-mart. A lady driving a new Honda SUV, inching forward through the yield sign into my right of way. I saw what was going to happen so I grabbed my pump, held it up over my head and charged right straight at her, like I was going to smash her nice car to bits. She finally found the brake pedal, and I continued on past victorious. And I gave her a nice wave.

A third bozo cut me off right there at the roundabout and I gave chase. Just about the time I was about to catch him, I grabbed my water bottle with the intent of giving him a good squirt right through his driver-side window. But he made a quick u-ey in front of the Church of Scientology and headed back toward the roundabout, fast as he could. Maybe he just hangs out there and messes up traffic for a hobby?

A FOURTH moron, actually a dim little old lady, driving one of those four-door pseudo-luxury USA-mobiles looked right into my eyes before turning right in front of me. RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I had to slam on my brakes or crash. Well, she wasn’t very hard to chase down-I got her in the Wal-mart parking lot as she was opening her door, and said, “you cut me off back there, why did you do that?”
And she said, “Oh, I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t believe it. She was SORRY!

A gal came up behind me on a residential street nearby, passed me then made a right turn right in front of me.
I’m getting a little tired of this, now.
I chased her down, knocked on her window and when she opened it I asked “why did you cut me off back there?”
She said, “I didn’t know if you were turning or not.”
Hmmm. Guess I didn’t use my GO STRAIGHT SIGNAL!

Just this morning a car passed me doing about forty, and the dirtbag passenger leaned out the window and shouted, “HYBDUG LACHNIAZ PSHNORMBID WLKCUIUNYH UP!” What a rude thing to say, I think.

More Night Ride Stories

You run into the strangest things while riding.
A few years ago my mechanic and I were out on a night ride at Red Rocks. We were on the road and came around a corner, and there was a pretty bad car accident right there in front of us. A Honda (as I remember) had spun out on the corner at a fairly high rate of speed, sideswiped a telephone pole pretty hard, and then ran into a dumpster. Totalled the car-just about folded it in half and bashed in on at least two sides, all the windows smashed, busted up the dumpster and maybe broke the pole as well. We thought there must be someone dead, but looking into the car we saw only broken glass and cassette tapes, miscellaneous trash. And blood. The driver had egressed through the moon roof, leaving a trail across the top of the car and the hood, to the side of the road, where he (she?) sat down to “pool” his thoughts. Or put his arm back together. Or something.
(This sequence of events I am reconstructing from the blood trail)
After sitting for a bit, he got up, walked (or crawled) to the car, and ripped off both license plates, evidently with his bare hands (again, surmising from the blood, and the fact that the licence plate screws still held the corners of the plates). Then took off down the road.
While examining the scene, we watched down at the bottom of the hill, maybe a half-mile away, a car pull over to the side of the road, sit a minute, then take off again towards Morrison. Had he called a friend?
We followed the trail down the road a few hundred yards, where it disappeared into the ditch-we guessed that the person had cut across the field to the lower road, right about where the car had stopped. Or maybe he saw us coming and jumped into the bushes? We had pretty bright headlights on our bikes, but saw nobody.
We rode down to the Conoco in Morrison, found a cop parked there, and gave him the story. He already knew, and was on his way there. Gave him our names and numbers, and never heard a thing about it again. I watched the paper for a week or two, but never found out what had happened.
Whoever owned that car, hopefully, got some cash from their insurance, and surely felt the loss anyway. But I can tell you, that thief got the short end of the stick. Big time.



Another night-ride story:

We were coming back from Apex one night, maybe 8 or 10 o’clock, and it’s just starting to get dark. Driving in the left lane on highway 6, maybe 65 mph, and RIGHT IN FRONT OF US (!) this SUV flips over, rolls twice, ends up on its side sliding backwards down the road.
Couldn’t believe my eyes. My buddy says something like, “Holy ShXX!, Did you see that?!”
Sparks flying. Broken Glass. A big gouge taken out of the asphalt where her tire had failed and the rim caught. It was a Ford. Bridgestone tires? I don’t know.
Well, I hit my brakes, turned on the emergency blinkers, and parked right there in the left lane. Got out, left my door open, ran up to the scene, I’m the first person there, and here’s what I found:
Two kids, a girl (maybe 10) and a boy (6?), standing in the window, on the pavement (were they wearing seatbelts?) absolutely terrified, panicked, crying, screaming, but OK. I lifted them out one at a time-some people had arrived by then, and they took the kids off to the side of the road to try to calm them down.
And a woman in the driver’s seat, still seatbelted in, still talking on her cel phone.

buying Chinese

Selected words screened out of Microsoft’s Chinese web portal, as reported by Rocky Mountain News:

Capitalism
Freedom
Liberty
Demonstration
Separatism
Democracy
Human Rights

Shooting the Gappers

A few Sundays ago I was coming up the Platte River Trail. Near Mineral there were a couple with a baby stroller in front of me and coming at us from the opposite direction, not twenty feet away, two more people with a pair of leashed dogs. Everyone out to enjoy a warm weekend. I slowed down to wait for the two parties to pass each other, so that I could proceed safely around the stoller and then ride on to work.

And what do you suppose happened? Two posers in their flashy team apparel passed me going about 25 (speed limit 15) and SHOT THE GAP with maybe twelve inches to spare on either side! I couldn’t believe it. What the hell? Why do you think there has to be a speed limit posted there? Why do you think people bad-mouth cyclists on the path? Because of idiots like them. If one of those guys had tagged someone and crashed, I’d have been the one to tape their sorry butt back together and you can be sure that I would be there to testify against them in court.

Ride smarter, people!

The Art of the Seatcuster

Here’s a neat bike:



This is a ca.1973 Mondia Super, I picked up cheap (really, I don’t make a habit of picking things up just because they’re cheap, but look at that paint!). Off came the tubulars, Off came the chintzy old breakamatic handlebars, Off came the ten-speed Nuovo Record. On went the fixed-gear rear wheel, On went the clinchers and handlebar, etc. And now I have a(nother) “saved” old bike to ride.

It seems heretical to put new components on frames like this, and anyway since it’s Swiss, or French, or some combination thereof, it probably wouldn’t be very rewarding anyway. The old Mafac brakes work fine (not good) as long as you keep adjusting them, and leave plenty of room for fenders, so now I don’t have to get my Pista all smutty when it’s wet out. You might say, “Well, how can you justify getting your nice old Mondia dirty when it rains?” If you saw the mudflaps I have on those fenders you might think that it really Doesn’t get too dirty... And besides, I don’t have any other bike that will take that little T.A. rack (it bolts right onto the brake). Come to think of it, that little rack is one of the biggest reasons I ride the bike at all; every time I look down I think, “Cool!”



Look at that wraparound cluster. Other Mondias I have seen are similar, yet this technique is more common on British frames. Defaced by the serial number; an odd utilitarianism within the framework of beauty.
Those lugs are known as Nervex (company) Professional (model) and are often found on the fanciest of older frames. They are French, I believe. Although this one is pretty fancy with that paint job and such, the finish is second-rate, with minimal filing at the lugs and a typically fragile paintjob. Pinstriping on the main tubes was done (evidently) by a master, being nice and straight and clean, but then the frame was handed off to a hamfisted apprentice, who blotched on the lining around lugs.

The bike rides great. We haven’t learned much about frame geometry for decades; I’ve measured this thing up for dimensions and angles (see the little “73” marked on the top tube?) and it’s not far away from the supposedly “modern” geometry of Le., or Tr., or Sp., or Gi., or any other Johnny-come-lately “sport bike”; they’re just copying what came before. (I didn’t include Bi. in that group because they are now 120 years old, and really are, arguably, largely responsible for influencing the Italian school of design).




1978 Bill Davidson
Burly. Italianate (esp. with the painted window). Graceful yet strong. Big fat stiff stay-ends with brazed caps, not plugs. Brazing those stays onto the sides of the cluster make for a wider space at the tire. Extremely clean, crisp edges.



197? Bruce Gordon
This lug shouts, “American!” Highly-reworked Cinelli lugs. Somewhat avant-garde, with the binder bolt hidden on the opposite side (see below). Insuperable form. There is a photo of (presumably) Mr. Gordon’s hands filing a lug in The Custom Bicycle, by Kolin and de la Rosa (Rodale, 1979), which shows what hands look like after a million hours of detail work on steel frames. The radii of these lug mouths are impeccable, near-perfect, thinned down and profiled to tiny points, dispersing the stress risers of the lug neatly into the tube. This photo doesn’t do justice to the frame.



You can get an idea of the number of miles on this frame by the wear marks in the cluster; it’s a testament to craftsmanship that it survives today. And a dramatic upward Swoop! on the backside of the lug adds a little support to the post and, again, helps disperse a stress riser where seatposts occasionally break off.

This old guy is currently serving as a fixed-gear cyclocrosser!



2000 Serotta
Optimized. Lug mouths and points not much larger than necessary. Stays that go not beyond the bolt. A lug profile which almost disappears into the line of the joint, just millimeters away.



1979 Austro-Daimler
Some makers use a plug at the end of the stay with their company name, or some other motif.



2003 Bianchi
Typical modern cluster, tig-welded of course. Strong, light, inexpensive.



1969(?) Bottecchia
Italian. Not top-of-the-line, but still the manufacturer cared enough about the product to chrome-plate the ENTIRE frame and detail the lugs in red. Note the little hiccup in the line of the descending radius-no filing done here, just brazed together and sent on to paint. The stay-ends are sliced open and the outer flap folded over and brazed down to form a closed end.



197? Peugeot
Nervex Pro lugs. Somebody hammered in the wrong size of seatpost and now no amount of twisting, torching, and penetrating oil can free it. A mechanic friend suggested soaking in Coca-cola; I’ll try that one day.



191? Iver Johnson
Early American bicycle. Compare the basic form of this to the Bruce Gordon and Serotta frames above. Usually called a “fastback” cluster.



198? Schwinn Sidewinder
Just for comparison; strong, cheap. I understand that’s actually a brazed joint, whereas the rest of the frame is welded. Ugh!



198? Univega
Modern spartanism with an attention to crispness, and artistic flair. Medium-long points with a filled cutout.



And this is kinda interesting. Nice, even dirt buildup around the break-that fissure has been working its way around for some time. The clean break around the belly of the downtube is pretty fresh, and the exciting new sensation from the pedals alerted the rider. If I got back on the bike and cranked around the building it would probably finish it off. Hmmm.



199? Cannondale 2.8
Here’s another seat cluster, this time in aluminum. The paint has been stripped and the frame sanded, wooled, and polished. Which is a lot of work and I don’t recommend it. But what a striking result! This bike reminds me of a character in a Terminator movie.

What Evil Lurks in Your Bike Shop?

A guy was in the shop a few days ago, I don’t remember what brought him in, but he made his way fairly quickly to a discussion about religion, and asked me something in the nature of, “what evils lurk in your closet?” Now, there are certain normal and socially accepted topics of discussion between strangers and that is not one, but anyway I asked him what he meant by “evil.” Wrong answer. I got a strange lecture about Heaven and Hell and Jesus and this-and-that, but I eventually got him to leave in good terms.

Anyway, I wondered later, can I be correct in describing Cartesian Existentialism?, thus: “That which one senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, reason, memory, emotion) is real, and that what is real actually exists.”
Does this sort of thing happen in other small businesses?

June

June 8
Why do I sell Bianchi? Because they make great bikes. Because they make every road bike a person is likely to need. Take a look at their catalog; racing bikes, sport bikes, touring bikes, three cyclocross bikes, two track bikes, steel, titanium, carbon fibre, aluminum, scandium, composites. Campagnolo or Shimano, Italian or Taiwanese, many models in nine sizes. We won’t be adding another brand in the near future.

To convert an old tubular wheel to clincher, first tape your new rim onto the old wheel and move the spokes over one at a time. Don’t tighten the nipples very much; just a few revolutions to hold them in place. When you’ve finished the hoop replacement, un-tape the old rim and set it aside. Look at the new wheel from the side; see where pairs of spokes cross each other one last time before continuing on to their respective nipples? That’s the third “cross,” and the only “lace” (on most wheels, when the spoke leaves the hub, it goes over two other spokes and under the third). Remove the nipples from those two spokes and put one full twist at that cross, then send the two spokes back to their original rim-holes. Do that all the way around. Now, instead of each spoke going over-over-under, it will go over-over-under-around-around. That full twist will take up the extra length of the spokes and will give you a super-cool, fairly stiff wheel. I have found this to work with fairly normal-profile clincher rims, such as a Mavic MA3, and have two such wheels in regular use with no problems. Some rims may perhaps require 1-1/2 turns. Good Luck.

June 12
An old 16-speed Merckx I’m working on needs a new chain, jockey wheels overhauls, the tape has come unraveled, broken spoke, dirty, etc., etc. Lots of miles since the last tune. The front derailleur cable has a tail which hangs out about an inch beyond the derailleur clamp, and ticks on the right crankarm when in the small chainring. The crimp on the end has actually worn a groove on the end of that crankarm!

June 16
There are so many ways a derailleur can be out of adjustment. Of course, the “adjustment” ways, like barrel adjusters and stop screws. But also adjustments like hanger straightness and chain wear, both of which are actually “repairs.”
Even on a new bike, even after it’s been adjusted, maybe even broken-in, cables will fall out of adjustment. You have a hundred little things that can go beyond adjustment and repair. What about dirt? Corrosion?

Paint inside a welded-on housing stop will crack and compress, maybe even chip and fall out. That’s going to effect cable tension, perhaps suddenly or in 1000 miles of use. But it will happen.

The cables running under the bottom bracket get dirty; bathe them in wax. It will clean, lubricate, and seal in one application/wipe. Dry Prep like a fly fisherman uses (wax dissolved in solvent) works pretty well, and there are commercial preparations available. Always use a little extra, and wipe off that extra carrying away the smut dissolved in it.

Make sure cable housings are cut and filed exactly flush, otherwise the pointed end will break up the housing end (expecially on plastic ones), maybe point a hole through it and effect the frame stop somehow. Also it could send the cable off-center, which results in too much friction.

When you clean a chain while it’s still on the bike, finish by polishing the outside of the chain. First, shift into your highest chainring. Using a dry, clean, rag, work directly on the outside plates of the chain as they lie on that largest chainring. You can get right up close, even push on the rag a l ittle, and get it really shiny. Oooh.

June 21
If you want to clean up quick after a bike ride and don’t have the time or facilities for a shower, use baby wipes. Stash a box in your desk at work, or carry a little ziplock bag in your pack or pannier. You can get practically an entire bath out of one disposable packet.

Today’s words to combine:
Pick a word from group 2 to modify a word in group 1:

1
Conservative
Liberal
Progressive

2
Ultra
Extreme
Moderate
Neo

Such as, “Neo Progressive.”
Or, “Moderate Conservative.”
Or, “Extreme Liberal.”

Remember, name calling is one of your basic fallacies. Ad Hominem, “To the man.”

I sure hope goodwill is brought to a neighborhood by a bike shop. It seems like a place for people to talk about their ambitions, their hopes and dreams, to use an old colloquy... We are all on our way somewhere; through parenthood, or vacation, or career, travel. And bicycles help us get through that in numerous ways; the cycling of seasons, day and night, miles and hours. These are the rhythms of life, which are embodied in the circular motion. Cycling.
I have an old rebuilt Kawamura/Nishiki with old tubulars on, friction 6-speed, etc. I’m a little afraid to ride it possibly because of the tubulars but also because the bottom bracket is hanging out on the right side about 5mm. And it’s got sorta trashed threads on the driveside, Alumininmin, cup. So I can probably count on it coming apart on the first or second ride. Sheesh.

June 25
It occurs to me: that if you do someone a favor, and exact payment by requiring that person to do a favor for someone else sometime, you could start a chain reaction that might go on for quite some time. You could change the world with just one small gesture. An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by an opposing force.

June 27
Some poser in an SUV told me this morning, "the sidewalk's right over there."
Duh. I pulled up to his open window and said, "the sidewalk's for pedestrians, get it straight."

I wanted to say more.