quality of life issues

Bret in ABQ

To ensure that supply meets demand and to avoid misdirected investment in stale inventory, I am taking pre-orders for pilderwasser Flex Fleece Hoodies    When I say pre-order I mean pre-pay because these limited edition beauties are $58 each.  You know what size you need. You know what color you want. Be specific.

I’ll take pre-orders until March 5, 2012 because that is when I’ll be ordering the usual  stock of T-shirts in a range of sizes and limited colors as well as infant onesies in long-sleeve and short. 

See the t-shirt page for more information.

time to take the plastic cover off
the embroidered upholstery

add sour cream and guacamole $2.50

let the toast fall
jelly side down

get over it
get on with it
get used to it

long reach dual pivot retro fit

ad hoc        stop gap
free lance free for all

what we talk about when we talk about ranch dressing

did I say that out loud?

worm drive hose clamp tongue depressor
fish hook eye gouge pile driver
purple turtle step stool non-sequitur

you can’t get there from here

herein fail not at your peril
keep your head on a swivel
visualize an Avocet O2 saddle

there’s a 5mm allen wrench in my pocket
or are you just happy to see me

most accidents occur within 50,000 miles of home

  read more now         you'll hear more later 

Steve Young

AG

Chris Murray

Here is a recent random selection of photos sent in by listeners from all around the world. They’re connected because you’re looking at them next to each other and proximity leads to assumptions as your brain connects the dots even if the dots don‘t want anything to do with each other. Viewed in sequence, a series, a triptych, a comic strip of images takes on its own meaning as A before B reflects on C. Or not.

Something old something new powder coated orange and anodized blue. Ask not what your handlebar position can do for you but where  it will be tomorrow and will there still be opportunities for mind changing in the near future. What you hear me saying is, is there plenty of steer tube to play with and headset spacers the size of Texas with loop d’ loops of cable housing and flip flop handlebars that go hi-flyer or low-rider? Is there still room to move? I’m keeping my hands off the hacksaw for a while. It was a conservative maiden voyage around the neighborhood last night as the sun went down,  but I finally rode it around like a little kid that got a bike for Christmas and then had to wait 4 months for his dad to assemble it. I’m relieved that this rather unusual mish mash of parts came together. I'm also relieved that it fits through the door in one piece. And now I’m tweaking clicking aligning and tightening. T-25 torx torque torqued. I haven’t completely left the early 90’s but I’m dabbling in the world of 31.8 clamp diameters, mega XO external bottom bracket bearings and these things called disc brakes. This bike is still clearly me with a vintage 600 derailleur and a thumb shifter. However there is only so much one can do with a lower limit screw and a six speed thumb shifter SIS all indexed out. I’m familiar with the feeling listening understanding of friction shifting but I can’t pull 8 clicks worth of cable on a six-click clicker friction or not. It's like feeling growing pains thirty years later, like finally making the awkward step from 126 to 130mm OLD. That's right, it's old.  I like single-speeds and I've always been comfortable hitting just two or three of the seven or eight cogs to choose from on various personal bikes but this is a rig that really needs all 8 speeds on its widespread 11-32 cassette.  

If anyone out there is still listening I’m asking you to dig through your milk crates full of bike parts and I will gladly pay you Tuesday for an 8-speed thumb shifter today. Perhaps I could take it in trade, offering in return a one-of-a-kind T-shirt and some verbal praise. Peace be with you.

jumbo pilderwasser sticker courtesy of Chris Murray

audacity  
short shorter short term memory
144 character archival quality  
federal holiday february
blossom cherry

six nine photo

What are you looking at? 

What was old is new again. That which we call a bike swap by any other name would smell as stale as a Mickey's roadmaster fashion accesory rookie strap.  One man’s scuffed-up-carbon-fiber-stress-riser may or may not be another man’s I’d-buy-that-for-fifty-five-dollar    however it could be just the thing if the price is right and the patina is pretty a pair of perfect platform pedals used gently and adopted into a family of five setting off a trickle down handmedown action as if the older sister got a new pair and down to sister younger go the old or maybe could it be  an NIB   NOS pair of Shadow Conspiracy pedals in baby blue  loose balls genetically programmed to BMX in Woodinville or Bothell but somehow able to hold out collecting dust on the shelf staying true to their gut feeling being born to push a cargo bike on the streets of Seattle and finally the heartwarming story of an XT thumb shifter circa 1989 born again to be clamped to an FSA Metropolis handlebar soon to steer a CETMA largo cargo       bike.

kickstand comics

Taken out of context they look the same but they feel so different sort of like 25 pounds in a shoulder bag is 25 pounds either way but the way it feels when it’s a stack of stale books to return to the law library on a next-day is no where near what it feels like when it’s a stack of beer cans to drink in the park today sort of like riding the same stretch of road at the same time of day feels so different on a Sunday sort of like a repetitive task of semiskilled manual labor performed because you want to feels so much better than doing it because someone is telling you to

you know it

tacit
implicit

attention deficit

not a priority
a priori

it’s a chicken-or-the-egg thing

to refuse to
buy products
that are
petroleum
by products
that is
harder than
it looks

look

they’re  there      their
footprints
everywhere

oil and water
oil and vinegar
oil and aftermarket bike parts dealer

20” Kenda tire
20” tube schraeder
20” cute little front fender

shiny and new 180mm disc rotor
monumental  momentum mass
rotating up to speed flywheel like

February cold morning molasses  
crosses the imaginary line where
negligible becomes considerable

personally that’s not a priority
it’s not about speeding up
it’s about slowing down 

This the photographic evidence that these three inspectors stopped by to inspect the green green grass on this side of the fence. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain and the orange picnic table was potable again.

Speaking of drinkable, the first beer from the keg is traditionally, ceremoniously, sacrificially, superstitiously returned to earth directly. The rest of the beers make their way down the drain one way or another as they say eventually but most often through the tract urinary.  We don’t buy beer we just rent it for a while.

Speaking of renewing your lease, what do you call it when Indian Summer arrives in February? one more reason Seattle leads the nation in sunglasses-sold-per-capita. That statistic illustrated clearly by the shades on Case’s face purchased just minutes earlier on the way up the hill, fastidiously shopping at Ross. For per capita calculations, the goggles on Sally and Cory factor in as well.

the grass is still greener on this side of the fence and all we need now are some disc brakes and levers and a thumb shifter and a big fat 8-speed casette and a chain and a new saddle and some perfect platform pedals and it smells like a bike swap is brewing on February 12 which traditionally has been a good source of thumb shifters and perfect platform pedals and track bikes with ovalized head tubes.

The vast, all-encompassing social science experiment continues.  We’re all participants and there is no need for express written consent.

insert variable
expect different results
repeat as needed


pendulum
momentum
continuum
fulcrum
equilibrium

Things that look good on the desk of a graphic designer often don’t translate to the real world, to the hands of the people that actually put it in play, the ones that make the stickers stick, the technicians that transfer decals to real world surfaces on things that actually see the light of day.

But that doesn’t matter much because those technicians aren’t in the board room asking difficult questions. They’re not looking at the presentations on the big money screen where things still look good, good enough to close the deals with the doughy soft guys that make the decisions and cut the checks.

It’s OK to take a vector image of a front wheel, flip it around and call it a rear triangle because nobody actually pays any attention to that shit. It's OK if graphic designers don't know chainstays.  It's OK if crank arms aren't on the same plane, the same axis, the same bottom bracket. It's OK if there is no drivetrain. It's OK. 

It’s OK to make decals that cost $17 each and take two hours to apply and won’t hold up past the show room. It’s OK. Don’t worry about it. Push it through.