Bike Profile - Wabi Lightning

A very bad photo of a very good bike

I can't recall why I ever thought a SS/FG road bike would be a good idea.  I ride in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, where 10,000'+ peaks jut out of the prairie.  Headwinds and hills - that's all I ride.  Having gears on your bike makes a lot of sense here.  There have been many rides where the fight against the wind is constant, but "as soon as I turn around, I'll have a sweet tailwind back".  Of course, just as I turn, the wind changes direction, and I push into it all the way home.  That's probably why so many of us abandon our skinny tires in June when the mountain bike trails dry out.  Trading headwinds for bears doesn't sound too bad after 3-4 months of battling the air [the hills are always there]. 

This is a well-edited video I came across on *gasp* Pinkbike...

2Ride (Short Film) - Full Version from Forev'Art on Vimeo.

Looks like a great place to ride. 

New Directions

I've been in IT for quite a while.  It wears on me like sand on beach glass; I'm more likely to attract necklace-making hippies, but I'm also ground down, dull around the edges and lacking lustre.  For a long time now, the best part of my day has been the bike ride at either end of it.  This is a bad thing.  Don't get me wrong, I don't expect that I'll ever jump out of bed, yelling "F*** YEAH!  Time for work!", but it would be great if I felt some [any] desire to go into the office.  Being a contractor is good because the longest my current contract will go for is to some time in July - I can move on to something else after that.  But what?

Bike Profile - Cervelo Soloist Carbon

Sometimes, when I ride this bike along some false flat into a head/cross wind that pulls the snot out of my nose and onto my jersey, I think about Jens and how he would push a little harder.  So I do.

Bike Profile - Ventana El Terremoto

 I picked up the frame and fork for my wife in January 2010, and spent a couple of months occasionally building it up.  The wheels were rebuilt at that time, as I wanted the red Hope hubs for my Titus, and the gunmetal really did look better on this bike. 

Bike Profile - Titus Racer-X

Not quite done...

I was able to score this frame from Speedgoat back in the spring of 2006[?].  Sam wanted a full-suspension bike, and this is what I was able to come up with.  2-3 pounds lighter than her hardtail, state of the art Juicy 7 brakes, a Reba Race fork with lockout, and really light wheels from [now defunct] Odds and Endos.  It doesn't get much use since she got the Terremoto, but it's still a fast, agile ride 5 years later.  I keep thinking about upgrading the shock or the fork, but they're fine, and she doesn't care.

Shrinking Cities

I came across an interesting article on the BikeCalgary site.  It's a good read.  With over half the global population living in cities, it's worth looking at how big they can be vs. how big they should be.  It's also about scale, specicifically human scale vs. car scale.  A quote from the article:

Buildings would, on average, be higher, houses would be replaced by apartments and cars by bicycles, walkable streets, streetcars, and elevators. Pleasurable and beautiful places like rooftop gardens and restaurants, multi-story solar greenhouses and bridges with spectacular views connecting buildings would predominate...

Sounds like a nice place to visit, and I'd want to live there.

Bike Profile - Misfit diSSent



Slack chain FTW

  Mmmm.  diSSent.  I picked up the frame on a whim from Misfit Psycles in spring 2009.  I had never been on a Big Wheel, nor did I know what the "correct" geometry was.   I read that they were sweet, but the capper was somebody writing about how it rode "nothing like a Gary Fisher".  SOLD.  After having the crap kicked out of me by the Brodie Unibomber for a couple of years, but still enjoying the zip of a SS, I decided to take the plunge.