it continues to be a quality of life issue

dual pivot long reach mentholatum

washed up ceramic bearing big in Japan

big pulley short cage conduit

cable actuated retroactive attitude

cross threaded cream filled reverse commute  

all tool interfaces stripped rounded mashed 

just riding along

in absentia

reduce   reuse   fuck off

no in loco parentis    

your mom doesn’t work here

clean up your shit 

dirty laundry aired loudly at the front of the room 

“nonfat decaf latte extra hot no foam!”

sentimental reasons to hang onto the quilt

stitched from souvenir Tyvek® STP jackets 

Tom Bice always said

Is this the life or what?

he also said

It’s worse when you lie about it 

Lately I’ve been thinking about the final 50 feet and this photo that Craig Etheridge took ten years ago gets the message across. 

An autonomous vehicle could find 1201 3rd but it couldn’t get the documents up to Perkins Coie. A drone could find 1001 4th but it couldn’t bring those four boxes up to the 21st floor and stack them behind the paralegal’s desk. The on-trac robot won't catch the typo and will be circling the block near 2nd Ave West when it should be going to 2nd Ave South. 

Lots of logistics experts and transportation planners sit around conference room tables and talk about streamlining delivery, improving loading docks and traffic flow in dense urban areas.  But they still need a messenger to take that theoretical shit the final fifty feet. I can assure you there were no experienced messengers sitting in on any of those meetings.

I think it would be tough to find a messenger that could stomach one of these meetings and there's a $15,000 buy-in for a seat at the table

Most experts agree that the final piece of the puzzle will not be automated for many years. 

the final fifty fucking feet

the final fucking fifty feet

the fucking final fifty feet

Jonny Sundt’s Axleys finally bit the dust.  August 5, 2019 10:27am I reached down to retrieve them from the bottom of the cargo box but because their right arm was pinned under a box of books it bent backwards beyond repair. 

Since whatever year (2006ish) Mr. Sundt gave me these shades they mostly sat in storage and came out once in a while in the summer months. I believe they made at least one trip with me on a great bike ride across Iowa. But recently they’ve gotten more daily use because the sun reflects off the large laminated campus map affixed atop the cargo box on the electric assist bathtub I roll around in Monday through Friday giving everything a sunny disposition.

The glass is half full.

Pilder junior junior has developed a keen eye for Swisher Sweet wrappers in the wild as you may have seen 15 or 20 photos of him here holding fragments of varying flavor and size. I have not gotten him hooked on hunting dental picks although it wouldn’t be hard to do. I have however gotten Dr 37 Mike to see them all over the place because once you see them you can’t unsee them and they’re everywhere. He recently sent me photos of a bike ride on a pristine wilderness trail where he rolled up upon a dental pick.  

Poached the photo above from a book I like but I’d like it even more if its constructions were constructed with only things found on the ground. 

My next coffee table book is going to be photos of garbage cans near schools and parks overflowing with hundreds of colorful bags of dogshit and photos of entitled dog owners setting just one more little doodie bag on top of the precarious pile. 

Q factor : Jan Heine  :: rubber bands : Shelley Tennant

bringing home the canadian bacon

the ponytail won’t hide the bald spot but the beret will

taciturn fecundity

psychosomatic consumerism

how many different routes can he walk from his office to the men’s room 

She obsessed compulsively over the details delusional in thinking that if she stuck to the routine she’d have some control over the outcome the results the events unfolding yesterday today and everyday

Nomar Garciaparra 

Step out of the box 

Idle hands are tools of the devil 

Set an alarm but be sure to wake before it goes off 

TMJ-inducing stress dreams somewhere along the coffee-beer continuum

When your first stop this morning was your last stop last night 

Dead men don’t wear plaid 

(Your Name Here) 

arial rounded italic bold 

numerous variables must fall into place for the two commuters to meet each morning at the same time in the same place on the Burke Gilman Trail

plug n chug

dig deeper

get in the drops

the broken clock on the wall behind the bar keeps catching my eye subconsciously noting the passage of time or lack thereof same time different day

free beer tomorrow 

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I’m not angry  I’m disappointed

Is it anxiety?       Is it creativity?

it’s the other side of the same coin

Yin Yang this   bro

Franklin claims Kenny G but Garfield had Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee

Ask me about entitled millennials on electric assist cargo bikes

Ask me if I had a good weekend

Ask me about your learned helplessness

it’s a steep learning curve but any one-eyed dyslexic monkey could do it as long as they can ride a bike and pretend to differentiate between 353650 and 353560 as well as 355630 and 355360

do me a favor - don’t do me any favors

separate they’re three simple words used in a variety of contexts but when they’re strung together just so they invoke feelings of dread and disgust like no other. Those three words are: South Lake Union

Proceed to the point of the turn

This too shall pass

On your left

broken social scene behind blue eyes

servings per container  alcohol by volume 

as of 7/30/19 Patsy Swayze is kicking the shit out of Merce Cunningham 

gold star for robot boy

Is that all there is? 

RAGBRAI 2019 with the pilderwasser collective

Yesterday I delivered a shovel to Life Sciences which was a 5 minute jaunt but it reminded me of the guy that took the photo below, the guy that rides around town with a shovel and a rake, a hori hori and a pair of gloves. But the real highlight of the ride was Patsy Swayze. G&O has nicknames for the electric assist getups on the bikes they build. The fleet we’ve had features the Merce Cunningham which is based on the EZ front hub motor. And now we have two new bikes featuring the Patsy Swayze built around the GMAC rear hub motor from GRIN Technologies. This thing kicks ass. It’s powerful and ideal for hauling heavy cargo with the regenerative braking. Coasting down hill you’re actually pumping juice back into the battery and not burning through brake pads every two weeks.  It was designed by gear heads and bike geeks that actually get outside and ride. Not by a bunch of chuffers sitting at a conference room table discussing trends in the bike industry.  

one of these custom made caps not hats you've seen on instagram made its way into my zipcode and soon packs of them will be making their way across Iowa from west to east 

another installment in the sad Mad Fiber saga

The people who went down from above and up from below and down from above and up from below are the people who did not go up from below nor down from above nor up from below nor down from above. 

by Yi Sang 

Excuse me, do you know your way around campus or are you just a delivery guy? 

I'm not sure what you're going to ask me next but I already know that if I do know the answer I don't really want to tell you or talk to you or help you out. 

In dense urban areas bike messengers are rolling Thomas Guides full of local knowledge but they're also magnets for stupid questions from tourists and bros.  And when the questions are loaded with attitude and condescension it's best to just say "I don't know" 

I even made a silkscreen 13 years ago and printed it right on my bag.  I don't know

I do know that Tapatio will always remind me of Stevil, even when it's in individually wrapped single serving sized containers and that this is more than I ever wanted to know about Pantone 18-3737

Entitled millennials on their devices

Entitled millennials on their way to work, late

Entitled millennials on the elevator

Entitled millennials on the escalator

Entitled millennials on the light rail

Entitled millennials on the curb waiting for their uber

Entitled millennials on lime bikes

Entitled millennials on a different axis of rotation

stumbled upon this book at the library and I like it enough to suggest it to you if you're into writing and words and introspection and the petty details of everyday life and the ways that it all inspires bigger questions 

You can slowly feed it into a fax machine if you could find one that works but whatever comes out on the other end won’t pay the rent. 

You can transfer money instantly with PayPal but there’s no money in your account. 

You can download the app but Erica can’t handle a bag of cash. 

You can talk for hours about cryptocurrency but it’s all horseshit. 

You can call a bike messenger. 

sunny day idea

buy a bicycle

ride it once

just this once

pro hac vice

twenty years later

it's another donation

nonprofit bike shop

upright comfort hybrid

adjustable stem stuck

grip shift pieceofshit

blownout front suspension

stepthrough aluminum nightmare

An ode to Bike Works this is and all those other nonprofit bike shops out there asking for donations. I’m not a yourbikesucks shit talker unless you can’t keep it out of my face and your bike really does suck, then I will gladly point it out. I have pulled 10000 donated bikes out of dumpsters and rolled them, bike trailered them and driven them in trucks and vans back to base as well as walked them from the Ferdinand fence over to Hudson Street on repeat repeatedly so I feel like I earned the right to talk shit about adjustable stems and blown out front suspension of disbelief. An upright comfort hybrid doesn’t speak to me the way it did to its original owner. Seattle sits on an aquifer of cycling, which is great because the donations roll in. However, while the board of directors is bragging about bike donations the foot soldiers are out there diving into dumpsters full of tangled piles of rusty shitty bikes extracting them one by one and it kinda sucks sometimes.  I have a great deal of respect for those that continue to work in small nonprofit bike shops.