Life – catchup
Posted on July 20, 2009
Filed Under .83, Bike Kwak, Misc | Leave a Comment
Well, much has been going on. Slightly less bike camping, more daily riding with the locals (.83) here in town. Summer is in full swing. And it has been ridiculous fun.
Too many bars and too many miles to go into specifics. A couple recent highlights.
I lent my Pacer to Jeff for a couple days, and then he left for RAGBRAI. My Pacer remains in his house. Oops. Not a big deal actually. I’ve been using the excuse to ride the LeMond aka “30 Rock” because really, I never ride it. Weather’s been so nice… boy it’s been a good time. This is a really great bike and I’ve been happy to have the excuse.
Anyhow, other things…
Photo from Alex
Photo from Rob
Last Thursday about 60 of us had a no-reason costume ride that morphed into a running of the bulls ride.
I’m the one in the dress. Derrick Ito – aka Ronald McFondle.
Photo from Rob
Photo from Rob
Photo by Andre
I mean seriously, we were a mess.
Photo from Alex
From here, down to Cowgirls Inc to ride the mechanical bull at that douchewad bar, then over to Goldies for some serious Karaoke action. Yeah, I rode the bull. And I sang me some karaoke. In a dress. I’m embarassing.
Photo by Andre - L to R - Jeff, me, Derrick
Travesty I tell you.
Friday was Henry’s birthday shindig. Saturday was lounging on Madrona Beach and then Cass’s birthday party at The Nickerson, Sunday was riding with Slow Sunday out to ABR and then an impromptu BBQ at Lincoln Park, then a ride over to the Chop Suey where some vodka company called 42 Below was hosting more Gerbil Wheel sprints with the Emerald City boys.
For the life of me I do not understand the appeal of indoor sprints when the weather is so incredible outside this time of year. On the 4th of July they put on REAL bike sprints outside on the Bridge to Nowhere at the Arboretum and it was totally fucking great. Real bikes, real distance, real sprints. Save this roller stuff for shitty weather and unridable conditions I say. Bah HUMBUG.
Still it was a good time, Ryan and the boys from Emerald City did a fine job putting this together – my hat’s off to em. Even I got conned into sprinting. Someone said oh it’s just for fun. I’m like, waiddaminnite losing’s not fun. But they were short a guy and after much pressuring I finally mounted up.
You know, walking up to the bikes I had this small fantasy in my head that I was going to get on and due to some genetic autistic like abnormality completely out of my control, I was going to get on this bike and we would discover that I had this unbelievable GIFT. Like I was going to be the fat retarded kid that could for whatever reason play poker better than anyone on earth. I would be the Rainman of sprinting it would be revealed. I would be the fastest dude ever. I would get off the bike sweaty and panting, smile and say something like, “Wow what happened?” and everyone would cheer and pat me on the back. Cyclists and bar hoochies would come up smiling to congratulate me with this newfound respect in their eyes like holy shit, you’re really fast! Some cute bike girl would come up and plant one on me. It would be great.
I lost by 6 seconds. It’s a 500 meter dash. Fuck. He could have stopped, had a cigarette, and still beaten me. My Rainman sprinting dream was dead in it’s retarded little shoes. In front of everyone it was revealed I possess no special powers or abilities. And nobody was surprised. It made me a little sad.
But again, even after my mighty fall from grace I found myself smiling more often than not. And my consolation for the night was that my adversary is a fellow .83er – Patrick – and he took first place. So if I’m going to get beat, might as well get beat by the fucking champ.
Last details, my camera died two weeks ago. I’m still debating what kind of camera to get next. Until then, you get these verbose posts and a series of thieved photographs from everyone else. If you have camera recommendations, I’m up for em. Will probably just ask what Alex uses though and get one of those.
There are a pile of details I’m glossing over with all this post of course. Personal stuff, geeky stuff, riding stuff, stupid stuff. The stuff our summers are made of – this travesty of a life in Seattle. Boy, it’s pretty rough.
Summers in Seattle. Hell yes. Ride your bike.
Onward.
PS – stumbled across this on the BBC today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8158729.stm
Somalia deports Chinese cyclist
Lee Yue Zhong said he was disappointed not reach Mogadishu
A Chinese cyclist has been forced to put the brakes on a 12-year world tour, after officials in Somalia deported him for not having the right documents.
Man, when you get deported from Somalia – a country without a government – wow. I mean seriously – you got deported by a country famous for having a serious and uncontrollable problem with FUCKING PIRATES. PIRATES. I guess Somalia’s on top of this wandering cyclist immigration problem though.
If I had to guess I’d say they were probably doing this for his own good, but still. At least they just sent him to the adjacent country and not back to China.
On a personal note I’d like to argue that getting thrown out of a country probably beats riding through it – at least in terms of story telling around the campfire. Like driving a Ferrari. What’s a better story, driving one, or totalling one? I rest my case. But for a guy on a 12 year bicycle tour, well. I he probably has a pile of stories and getting thrown out of a country is probably kids stuff to him by now.
Best of luck mate.
Nostalgia
Posted on April 27, 2009
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Mechanical, Misc | 2 Comments
I killed my fish. No, seriously. Half of this bench was taken up with a 25 Gallon fish tank that previously had been home to a Rainbow Shark, 3 or 4 Chinese Golden Algae Eaters, and about a dozen little red eyed guppy like fish. Well over the years the shark died, and then the Algae Eaters died off one after another in bizarre places and ways (strange fish I tell you), and then most of the guppy fish died off over time over time, until there were only 2 left.
2 small guppy fish for a 25 gallon tank.
For the past year I wake up every morning walk into my kitchen and hope they died. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. I put them on a DNR/No Special Measures order meaning I’d feed them and replace the water that evaporated out of the tank but other than that – forget it. No tank cleaning, no filter replacing, no rock re-arrangement to keep them entertained. Nothin.
I now have a theory that these two actually conspired to kill the other fish to have the tank to themselves. Fucking immortal fish I tell you. That tank got FUNKY and still they persisted. At one point a “friend” (ahem) accidentally dropped a mostly full beer in there and that didn’t even phase them.
So this weekend, confident in their ability to survive even the worst havoc, I put the fish tank and all the miscellaneous crap that goes with it on Craigslist for free (say goodbye in 20 minutes), and I gave these two the last frontier and with a grandiose SWOOSH, sent them into the sunset. Now, it’s true – I don’t know they’re dead. In fact I have every reason to believe they are alive and well. But I still feel a little bit guilty.
On the up side, I now have this great workbench.
I don’t think about my dad much, but building this this weekend, I couldn’t stop. To walk into our house growing up, you had to walk through the “shop” to get there. It was the first thing anyone ever saw coming into the house. I think now this must have annoyed the hell out of my mom as I recall the first impressions of everyone who ever came over was usually a – woah, okay, lets walk through the shop to get to the living room! If mom ever wanted a “nice” house, well it wasn’t the one we grew up in. Not to say it was bad or ugly or dirty – it wasn’t. And I guess it sorta depends on your definition of a “nice” house, but in my experience nice houses don’t typically mandate you walk through a full woodshop full of stretched and tanning animal hides to get to the foyer.
Turns out my dad and I are quite a bit alike. Aesthetics are nice, but there’s a real underlying framework of utilitarianism in both of us. We are both clever, both fixers and fiddlers. And our work areas tend to be rather organic and multi-hued, ready to adapt to any project we might fancy. Because like my dad, I have projects. Things I’ll get completely into. Projects that invariably need “stuff” and “space” and will invariably generate it’s own amount of “crap”. This weekend, finally organizing my workspace, I couldn’t help but realize how close he and I had become in this fashion. And how comfortable and at-home it all felt when I was finished.
And though completely unintentional, like the house I grew up in it’s in the first room in my house (my kitchen), and whether I like it or not will be the first thing anyone sees, will be the first impression anyone has before they make it into my living room. As if to say, this is Scott, surrounded by his work at home – just like his Dad.
There are worse statements to be made about a person.
In fact I think the only thing my shop is missing to match up with my Dads would be a sander slaved to a salvaged washer motor via pulleys and timing belts. Not kidding.
I’d like to point out the contrast of my bench and tools – which have been accumulated one at a time or in collections lost and found over the years as compared to say, my friend Chris’s bench. Keep in mind, these are pictures of our benches completely new and unused (yes, mine starts out looking like this, I’m so screwed).
Onward.
Of Children and Kings…
Posted on March 21, 2009
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Bikes, Misc | 1 Comment
Chris Nygaard recently had two children. Both took about 9 months in the hopper. Both have been the result of profound respect and affection. Both of them we adore, admire, and are vaguely frightened of.
Both are utterly metal.
Incidentally, both will also bear the weight of nations, possibly be the conqueror of mankind, and eventually also carry up to 6 water bottles.
The first I am referring to of course is his Salsa Fargo. Jesus christ. Let me post a few pictures about it first.
FLICKR- Highly recommended because he has all kinds of notes and stuff in here.
This is where it all started:
Before he even assembled it he sent it off to have S&S couplers installed
Then had the thing powder coated
And let me be clear here. When I say he powder coated it – he powder coated EVERYTHING. Including the steerer tube and head spacer. The result of which was a striking bit of detail that – after many incredulous looks at one another upon hearing his crazy plan, actually looks sexy as hell. And all he had to do was, using a high precision lathe and trained machinist, bore out his Chris King headset to make allowance for the extra .002 inch the powder coating added to the diameter of the steerer tube! What can I say – the man had a vision, and though I can’t say I’d have done it – boy does it look nice. I think it paid off.
Phil Wood hub in the rear, Schmidt dynamo hub up front, disc brakes…
(specially bent fender joists to accommodate the disc brakes…)
The result of which is this enormous beautiful mutant bike. It’s genuinely hard to gauge size here, but the thing is huge. I’m 5′10′ and standing beside it his handlebars almost hit me in the throat. Those are 700×50 Schwalbes. With his knobbies Chris said he can stand beside it and his knuckles rest on top of the tire – and he’s a bit over 6 feet tall. And it’s not done! He has a front porteur rack he’s building for it by hand, the Tubus Logo rack isn’t mounted, and he’s got some sort of mega hella burn your retinas out channeling the depths of the sun headlights to attach to it still (to be powered by that front dynamo hub). Also not pictured are the full fenders, flask mount, or the bottle opener he has attached. There’s more but hell, I can’t keep up.
From his flickr page though -
Frame: Salsa Fargo 20″
Fork: Salsa Fargo
Headset: King NoThreadSet 1.125″
Headset Spacers: Thin Walled 6061 Aluminum 1.125″ x 88mm
Shift Levers: SRAM X-9
Brakes and Levers: Hayes El Camino
Front Derailuer: Shimano XT Topswing
Rear Derailuer: SRAM X-9 Long cage
Cranks: Truvativ Stylo OCT 3.3 175mm
Chain Rings: SRAM 44/32/22
Bottom Bracket: Truvativ GXP Giga X Pipe Team
Cassette: SRAM PG-990 11-32t
Chain: SRAM PC-991 CrossStep 9-speed
Pedals: Shimano Deore PD-M540
Front Hub: Schmidt Dynamo SON 28 Disc 36 hole
Rear Hub: Phil Wood Mountain Disc – SLR 36 hole
Rims: Velocity Blunt 29′er Disc
Spokes: Phil Wood Butted
Nipples: DT Standard Aluminium 2.0mm x 12mm
Rim Strip: Velocity Veloplugs
Tyres: Schwalbe Marathon Supreme 700×50mm
Tubes: Schwalbe Extra Light 140G 40-622/60-622
Quick Release: PitLock front and rear
Stem: Thomson X4 Mountain 1.125″ x 10° x 120mm
Handlebars: Truvativ Stylo World Chamption Flat bar 31.8mm x 5°
Grips: Salsa Pepperjacks Mountain
Seatpost: Thomson Elite 27.2mm x 410mm
Saddle: Brooks Team Professional Titanium
Seatpost Clamp: Salsa Lip Lock
Headlight: Schmidt Edelux
Taillight: B&M 4D Lite Plus
Fenders: SKS Chromoplastic 65mm
Bottle Opener: Ahrens Bicycles Wisecracker 27.2mm
Rear Rack: Tubus Logo
Bell: Mirrycle Incredibell
Do you see that? HE HAS SPECS FOR HIS FUCKING BELL.
I love this man.
The second child I speak of is no less miraculous, frightening, or beautiful. Ender of men, breaker of hearts, warrior poet child king, future bicycle jerk and burner of palates – At 4:18, on March 20th, she, Tomyris Una Huff Nygaard, was born weighting 7 pounds and 6.5 ounces, and 21 inches.
Uhhh… Tomyris?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomyris
Killed Cyrus the Great after defeating him twice in battle, cut off he head, dunked it in a bucket of blood, asked if that was enough blood for him (1), and drank wine out of his skull for the rest of her life.
1: Cyrus gave a pompous speech about how a river of blood would not slake his thirst for Tomyris’ land in the lead up to the second battle.
Ooooohhhhh! THAT Tomyris!?!?!
Metal I tell you. Metal.
Congrats to Chris and Jenn, and welcome to this wonderful and terrible world Tomyris.
Onward
Chris King…
Posted on March 4, 2009
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Mechanical, Misc | 6 Comments
Things have been good. Not a lot to report since the FHR. A couple rides with .83, some miscellaneous riding with the chainwhip boys and Smashed Up Sunday. Speaking of – rumor has it theres a new ride called Squarepeg that Nova ran into on Sunday. Might have to check it out. Weather keeps trying to get nice but winter doesn’t seem to want to give up this year, so it’s all a bit hectic. Today started out dreary, was beautiful in the day, and in the afternoon started dumping cold rain again. Rough. Last week it snowed 3 inches again. I bolted my knobby tires back on and I’m not taking them off till May. Screw it.
Speaking of – the Bicycle Eater underwent some maintenance tonight finally. The long and short of it is I’ve got about a thousand miles on it and the headset went to hell, which is saying something about that headset – what a POS. I haven’t really ridden it that hard or that long. and frankly a headset should last a LONG time. Bah. Not only was it hard to turn left or right, but it was hard to ride in a straight line because the bars would pull left and right as the headset would stick and unstick. I dropped the fork to inspect it and the bottom bearing assembly just came apart in my hands in this mess. I guess that was why. Was really uncomfortable to ride. After much himming and hawing and talking to folks I talked myself into buying a very unassuming silver Chris King headset. Fuggit – it has a 10 year warranty and is presumably bombproof. That POS Richie didn’t even last 1000 miles. I might send it back to them and see what they say.
Now it’s installed…? I mean, it’s a headset. What do I say? It feels good – smooth, tight, errorless – is that a word? And more importantly it fixed the problem 100%. Good job Chris King. Honestly it doesn’t feel any better or worse than my Cane Creek 110 I have on the Pacer – but on the other hand I guess that’s Cane Creeks equivalent, so theoretically it wouldn’t. Nygaard did the headset installation – faced and reamed the headtube with the Park tool first, de burred the inner bevel and then installed it, easy as you please.
And actually I lied, it feels fucking awesome to get it back on the road again. Having the Bicycle Eater be out of commission I’ve learned makes me irrationally agitated. Everything else – meh. But this bike must run at all times no matter what. Evidently.
I’m planning on doing some minor bike camping come mid-late March me thinks – back out to Bainbridge Island – there’s a camp ground at the north end that should work just fine. Need to get my camp legs underneath me again, work out my camp cook setup, that sort of thing – don’t want a lot of miles. Just want to do a couple small trips early in the season and work the kinks out. There’s much to get reacquainted with.
Lastly, though it’s not specifically bike related – I’ve been evaluating an Eee Pc 1000HE netbook from Asus.
It’s reeeally tiny. 10 inches, weighs 3lbs, has a battery life of 9+ hours (yeah not kidding on that either, holy crap), 2Gb memory, 160Gb hard drive, bluetooth, b/g/n wireless, GigE Ethernet, 3x USB 2.0 ports, a VGA video out, 1080×600 resolution, integrated 1.3Mp web camera and microphone to use skype with, hyperthreaded 1.66Ghz Atom CPU, integrated 4-in-1 SD card reader, and best of all, runs Windows XP, OSX, or (my personal favorite) Ubuntu Linux. In fact, I’m writing this post on it and I have to say, I like it. Oh, and I like the price too. $374 from AMAZON – can’t beat that!. For a traveling/biking/blogging/photography/repository bush-laptop you know what – this thing might just be the shit. Besides the form factor and the enormous battery life, it’s got enough storage to hold a lot of photos, and does full video skype (VOIP). It’s pretty badass. Click the photo to take you to Engaget for more pics, and a couple links to good reviews for full details. My thoughts so far? I’m very very impressed with it.
Okay, it’s time for bed kiddies.
Onward
PS – almost forgot. Installed mud flaps on both the Bicycle Eater and the Pacer. Thanks to Andy for the leather front one on my LHT – was a birthday present. Boy do they help.
From the Surly Bikes flickr page…
Posted on February 17, 2009
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Misc | 2 Comments
Front racks
Posted on January 18, 2009
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Misc | Leave a Comment
Someone on bike pirates asked a question about front racks and what came back were some racks I’d not heard of before. Figure they warrant some mention/documentaton.
Anyone who’s kept up my blog knows that I won’t shutup about the two racks I have.
the CETMA 5 rail I have on my Pacer
And the Surly Nice Front Rack on the Bicycle Eater
Guess what I didn’t know was racks from http://oldmanmountain.com – personally I think they’re sorta ugly and overbuilt, but they’re priced right and appear to be pretty burly.
and these racks which are beautiful, but (I think) overpriced from Pass and Stow
Anyhow, the weather this weekend was totally incredible. Didn’t get as much riding done as I’d have liked, but still. It was nice to putter around in the sunlight.
2009 .83 spoke card submission
Posted on January 15, 2009
Filed Under .83, Bike Kwak, Misc | 2 Comments
I have more. This is just the beginning.
blogs and random shit
Posted on January 14, 2009
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Misc, Videos | 1 Comment
This is for my edification only, and because I must do real work and simply want to come back later and get at these.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlLi0Hrx9QE[/youtube]
http://drunkcyclist.com/
http://thelazyrando.wordpress.com/
http://bikehacks.com/
http://veloquent.blogspot.com/
http://epicureancyclist.blogspot.com/
http://sfcyclotouring.blogspot.com/
http://www.swobo.com/htatbl/
http://notyouraveragebicyclemessenger.bostonbiker.org/
http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-things-changepart-ii-true.html
http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/
http://everydayathleteblog.com/
CETMA Rack update
Posted on December 9, 2008
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Misc | 4 Comments
Apparently it’s coming by fucking carrier pigeon because it’s still not here. I mean, I know Eugene is a long ways away and all but, uh. Yeah.
Lane you seem like a cool guy, but this is fucking retarded.
Fortunately I’m waiting for a slew of other parts to come in the mail too.
I’m ready to build a fucking bicycle already.
NEVERMIND – IT’S HERE!
Happy Thanksgiving folks
Posted on November 27, 2008
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Misc | 1 Comment
Big thanks to Chris Nygard and his wife for having everyone over. Good food. Good friends. Tomorrow, a long ass ride to Bellingham. I’m nervous I’m underestimating the demands of the ride. Hope not. I guess we’ll see.
keep looking »Holla!
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