Stolen Bikes

Posted on April 29, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Bikes, Theft | 1 Comment

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Not mine but a friends.  54 Green Surly Long Haul Trucker – yes exactly the same model and size as mine.  Black fenders and a black rack, decals scribbled off.  Stolen a month and a half ago.  Two days ago I was sitting at Pazzos Pizza and watched this guy roll by on the sidewalk on it.  He’d attached a black front basket to it.  Older black guy, 45-55 years with long dreads and a wide brimmed straw hat.  I walked over to him with my camera phone and was like – hey man I like your bike.  He says, yeah people like this old thing.  I say, that’s funny because that’s not an old bike.  Will you sell it to me?  I’ll give you $300 for it – and he rode off South on Eastlake.  All I could do was get a picture of the saddle – which was uniquely Brandons and by the time my shitty camera phone cycled around all I got was a bad bottom half picture.  But from the pic Brandon was able to identify the bike positively.  Yesterday the bike was spotted again near Westlake Center.

I don’t get the feeling that this was the guy who stole the bike to be honest, but if I’d been able to positively ident the bike on the spot I’d have been more forceful.  Later Brandon was able to positively ident the bike as his from the photos.

So I guess call me if you see it – or call Brandon.

Me: 206 412 3055 – cell
Brandon: 206 992 7567 – cell

This weekend – Ben Country Bike Camping!

Onward

Nostalgia

Posted on April 27, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Mechanical, Misc | 2 Comments

090426-workbench

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.

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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.

Filmed By Bike (last weekend)

Posted on April 23, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under .83, Bike Kwak, Events | 3 Comments

Bah, I’m never going to get to it.

Around 40 of us made our way to Portland last weekend for the Filmed By Bike Film Festival. Most of us took the train and our bikes. A couple of us car-pooled. I don’t have time to go into it all, but it was super fun and I have a truck load of pictures.

(click the pictures for the entire gallery)

FRIDAY

friday

SATURDAY

saturday

SUNDAY

sunday

Good weekend gang. Weekend after next – bike camping at Ben Country!

Onward

Bikes – the ongoing saga

Posted on April 14, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Bikes, Mechanical | 3 Comments

You may not believe me, but I don’t like change. No no no – it’s true! I don’t really like changing something up for the sake of changing it up. Almost nothing is harder for me to do then to take a perfectly functioning bicycle and tear it down.

In my perfect world, well maintained bikes are perfect forever – more or less. Parts are made of quality components with care and precision and never wear out or fail, tires go flat only on sunny days next to park benches just a block from the LBS when you have nowhere to be, and parts and components are cheap and plentiful and on the shelf.

The reality is, even good components wear out or fail, your tire is going to go flat at the worst possible moment in the most horrid of conditions, the LBS might be a block away but it’s closed, you’re late for work, and components are – if you actually find what you’re looking for at your LBS and not settling for something that “will probably work fine anyhow” – if your LBS has the actual parts you’re looking for, they’re also going to be expensive because the sad fact is there is little or no margin in the bicycle industry. AND, it turns out, all bikes are not suited for all purposes.

And see, this is what catches me, every time. I’m riding this bike and some days I say to myself – this is the perfect bike for me. And other days I’m doing something different and say to myself this is pretty alright but you know what would be better if this bike did this this and this, OR (my achilles heel) if I simply had another bike that did these things.

On that note – the secrets out. I bought a 29er. I know I know. Just shaddap already. I know I just bought the LeMond. AND… it’s another Surly, a Karate Monkey!!!. The price was right (Craigslist used bike), the bike is fun, and I’ve never had a mountain bike but this winter… yeah I dunno. I mean over time I was able to reconfigure the Bicycle Eater to handle winter duties (mountain bars, knobby or studded snow tires, shifter/brake recombo, etc) but it was expensive and time consuming to do the cutover, it’s a hassle, and ultimately it’s not the best way to conquer the problem of off-roading or serious winter riding, 26×2.1 inch wheels or not.

So, this brings my stable to 4 (running) bikes. And 3 of them are in dissarray and need finishing.

The Fast Bike – 1999 LeMond Buenos Airies (steel)1999 Lemond Buenos Aires This bike is perfect, the stem is just too long at 120mm. I have finally hunted down a 100 and 110mm Cinelli XA stem and need to replace it. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal but it turns out that in order to swap the stem, I have to totally unwrap and uncable one half of the bars and thread the bar out through it. I haven’t done it yet because it’s just a hassle.
The All Day Bike – 2009 Surly PacerSurly Pacer She’s done. she’s perfect. I’d like to put some cross-top interrupter brake levers on her, but she’s rolling without them right now just fine. This is a great bike, easily the smoothest bike I’ve ever ridden.
.

The Touring Bike – 2008 Surly Long Haul Trucker

Long Haul Trucker Motherfucker
Bicycle Eater

 Oh boy. A good solid touring rig – and I had to rip it all out if I had any desire to rider in in the ice and snow. But now the winter is gone – I’ve taken the H-bars off and am putting a set of polished Midge bars on it. I’m excited to get this bike back into touring shape. Right now she’s waiting on a new set of brake levers. Those Midge bars are so incredibly comfortable. Boy. I bought them for the Monkey below because they’re billeted as “mountain drops” – but truth is they’re too narrow for my mountain bike tastes, but just right for touring bike duty..
The 29er Mountain Bike – Surly Karate Monkey Surly Karate Monkey She’s a single speed 29′er in a city filled with hills. This is my current project bike. I’m turning her into a 1×9 initially, but might eventually go 2×9. We’ll see. I’m building a new set of wheels and switching from V-Brakes to Disc brakes. I took the H-bars from the Bicycle Eater above and put them on – totally rad.Sheldon Brown claimed this is the most versatile bike ever made – I’d agree if it had bosses for racks. I might braze a few on myself if I get around to it.Other cool things – you can put a Pugsley fork on it and use an Endomorph tire on it. Come winter – this will rule.

So, yeah. Bikes bikes bikes! This weekend a pile of us are going to Portland for Filmed By Bike, a bicycle film festival lasting I guess 2 nights or something. I dunno, it’s going to be a hoot. Andy is putting some of us up in his house, and most of us are taking the train down. Much fun to be had.

Anyhow, there is work to be done so will leave now. Hadn’t updated in awhile and figured I’d put something together.

Onward.

Bike Sabbath

Posted on April 7, 2009 -- Edit Post
Filed Under Bike Kwak, Rides, Routes | Leave a Comment

In my head, I’m always composing blog posts. Like this silly narration in the back of my head – this is what we’re doing and this is how I will tell it. And then time comes to sit in front of the computer and poof – all my creativity has fled, my mental blog post nowhere to be seen. I’m left with little more than a dry recounting of events in more or less sequential order – and around 500 pictures that I’m responsible for giving context to, or why take them at all. What I write here are not my most inspiring, most thoughtful words. They apparently are what is left over. I always read and admire my friend Professor Dave’s blog, 327 words for being interesting and insightful and – well fluid. From a blogging point of view he’s one of several narrative pivot points, or touchstones for me. Not just to compose my blogs or writing thusly, but his blog reminds me to take a moment and step back and take a look around. I appreciate that.  If I could only manage to retain it long enough to get to my computer to blog about it, I’d be set.

Well on the note of dry recounting, I’ll quote what I posted on the forums last night after the ride.

Not great pictures

http://sweetbike.org/gallery/v/bike/090405-Bike-Sabbath/

Today was a good ride. Couldn’t have asked for better weather, or frankly better company. Our route took us over the ferry to Bainbridge Island, to Alastair’s folks house to meet his dad (Robin) and take a breather, and then over to the Kingston Ferry and back on this side of the water to Edmonds and back south to grub at the Park(?) Pub. I don’t think we set any records in terms of distance, around 35-40 miles I guess, but there were a couple banner hills to climb and at the end of the day we were happy and tired satisfied.

Thanks for a nice ride gang. Looking forward to next Sunday.

I think the only thing I left out of there was we walked around Classic Cycles after we got off the ferry on Bainbridge which was really neat. There were all these old and odd and clever bicycles built decades ago. The owner also helped us plan our days route. LBS ftw! We also at one point stopped and helped two little girls pedaling around their neighborhood. Their chain kept falling off. Cutest moment ever.

Lee mapped our route – http://tinyurl.com/ct52an at around 38 miles.

I’m becoming a stronger rider physically, but mentally I am too I think. Of the two I think the latter is the harder for me. The Pacer – the more I ride her the more I like her. What a stellar bike. Not the lightest bike in the stable at 27lbs (full fenders and front CETMA rack). It is by far the smoothest bike I’ve ridden. Surly was right – it’s an all-day bike. I rode light – spare tire fixins went into that little saddle bag under my saddle, pump got mounted to my bottle cage mounts, and I tossed a pair of arm warmers and a multi-tool in the pocket of my Gore-tex, rolled it up and strapped it to the front rack. No bag for me! Riding light is totally the way to go.

For no good reason I wasn’t feeling particularly talkative on the ride so mostly kept to myself, let my brain sorta laze along, doing it’s own thing. The weather was just immaculate. Made me really appreciate spending time out there. As soon as we got off 305 and onto the back roads, it was literally all good from there. Rolling hills, a couple big hills to bomb. Mentally I was rite. Even getting off the ferry and climbing out of Edmonds and up that monster retarded long hill… well it wasn’t easy but mentally I wasn’t dying either. And at the end of the night, sitting around the Park Pub, I felt like I had many more miles in me. I was tired but not near the wall. It wasn’t until I’d sat there for an hour did I realize how tired I really was.

Good weather, good friends, good bikes, good beer, good routes. Can’t really ask for more. And from this, Bike Sabbath is born.

Onward.

PS more pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrjoeball/sets/72157616449505822/ – Andre
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeypoo/sets/72157616348979679/ – Jeff