a quality of life issue

life is a series of choices that lead to other decision making scenarios that allow you in retrospect to ask "what the fuck was I thinking?"

this bike makes my wrists hurt visualizing the constant struggle to keep from sliding down the saddle

Sasha Peet photo bro circa 2006

standing on a street corner Wednesday   rain dripping off my helmet into my short americano with a thousand mile stare I couldn't help but think of 18 and a conversation I often had with him many times unspoken or boiled down to very few words the gist being "I'm getting too old for this shit" 

yesterday I received my newest Double Darn cap.

the Hunter style in a classic understated grey wool perfect for January in Seattle under my helmet each and every day all day long and simply cool enough to wear around town without a helmet as in without a bike as in I'm not trying to always look like a chuffer commuter cascade member you know like a hose clamped milk crate douche bag expecting respect from a bungee corded pickle bucket Dexter Avenue warrior. 

these photos are years and years old but we also got new caps for the whole family including the pizza print the sushi and a 4-panel cap  in the most comfortable flannel ever. 

thanks Misia

when I showed this to the guys down at DANK bags they agreed with my horseshit assessment and pointed out it's about 20 years too late

if anyone knows anything about coozies over the past 20 years it's those guys at DANK and as president of the profile design cup holders club I know a thing or two about making seamless transitions along the coffee-beer continuum with a few well placed botttle cage bolts.  

or maybe you can

this is 87's bike. if you have questions he can answer them. 

this site has been up for 712 weeks. ask a fucking millennial to convert that to years for you. it's 2019 and there are a lot of questions but Joe Biden is not the answer. sitting in a car the other day driving past 411 Fairview North...holy shit

 "How did I get here?" 

E dog compilation and photo 

mirror check

signal 

head check 

change lanes

bbb photo

20 years ago today, Devlin took my camera and took this photo and fucking millennials cannot geek out and check the exact time and gps coordinates of the photo because it was black & white film in a real live camera before 9-11 when large office building lobbies had life size santa statues and not security guards in ill fitting blue blazers and oversized grey pants. 

20 years later I'm wearing the same outfit except I ditched the Sidis because there is no reason to clip-in for the ride from Benson Hall to Bagley Hall and I traded that sweet Pearl Izumi national champ jacket --that I like to think was Rebecca Twigg's and she ditched all her stars & stripes after the 96 Olympics in a fit of rage and that jacket ended up at the Chicken Soup thrift store on the hill where I purchased it for $5 nwt -- for a Tuborg jersey at the CMWC philadelphia.

20 years and more of messengers bags and I had one T2 and one PAC and six DANK bags that I wore the shit out of lowering my right shoulder several centimeters hauling around legal documents and six packs of tall boys but that's Ortlieb in the photo and there's Ortlieb on my back as we speak 

Jan Heine photo bro

Once upon a time in a small nonprofit bike shop warehouse I refurbished 1,987 used bikes and stripped or recycled or hacksawed into cheater bars many thousands more.  When I replaced the cables and housing on a bike I also replaced the straddle cables. When the inventory of straddle cables ran out I would use a brake cable. Just like I do on my own bikes. However I soon stopped cutting this corner on the job when the shop mechanics told me of customer complaints claiming they couldn’t get their wheels off because they couldn’t release their brakes because they couldn’t get a grip on the straddle cable because it was actually just a brake cable and had no place to grab on.

The other day after a day of riding in the rain I met my old lady for a couple beers and then she offered me a ride home. I said hell yes I’ll take a ride up the hill. I walked my bike over to the car and started to take off the front wheel so I could fit the thing in the hatchback over the kid seats but I couldn’t release the front brake. I couldn’t get the fucking straddle cable out. All I could hear was Steve Maluk’s voice saying “don’t do that” with Homer and Kellen in the background frowning and shaking their heads.  

I ended up riding my bike home.

I plan to continue to use an old brake cable to straddle my cantilever brakes when I replace the cables on my own bikes. I recently replaced my brake pads on my daily commuter and the brakes are so tight right now even with the finest straddle cable in the world there’s not enough slack to release the calipers. But in a couple weeks there will be.

the paint splat has been there for a while the words were added recently

it's the little things

these two were in my living room the other day holding green keg cups and I didn't take a photo to re-enact the moment-of-yesteryear so I could compare and contrast and win on instagram. what i did do is keep my phone in my pocket and actually talk to people so you now have to visualize these two plus or minus 10 years holding green keg cups.

same as it ever was. 

they're just background noise to the untrained eye. 

but once you see them you cannot unsee them.

they're everywhere. 

this kid has an eye for them.

he found this one on the Cedar River Trail