what was that? is that all there is? who is this? this is it.

The variable autotransformer. You could call it a Variac. Bench mount model. Perhaps used in organic chemistry labs to control heating mantles. Or for equipment testing and repair. Knob controlled output of electricity flowing from that outlet up front, from 0 volts to around 130 VAC in this model. 

This particular variac lived a long life working in the Chemistry department for decades before it began shooting out smoke and sparks when they plugged it in. So they kicked it to the curb, where I admired it for weeks rolling along my habbitrails the wrong way down Okanogan Lane.  Finally one day I asked if I could adopt it and offer it a new home free from any electrical applications. Then they said sure whatever. 

This thing brings me joy. Heavy and old school. The dial is giant and overbuilt. Analog as all get out. The coil of the cord is epic.  The toggle switch is monumental with a satisfying click leaving no doubt about where you stand. It’s ON or It’s OFF. There’s no subtle gray areas or any awkward unspoken unusual situations that may arise. (until it starts smoking and sparking) It's ON or OFF. Like Bob Mould said:

I wish for real

that I could turn it ON and OFF

like HOT & COLD or UP & DOWN

because I’m down again

“Too Far Down”

Hüsker Dü 

For the past ten years I’ve used a skateboard to schlepp a full keg from point A to point B. Precariously perched with its 165 pounds flexing the thrift store board. It gets the job done. 

But the folly trolley says a new era has begun. Talking the talk of a new way, a new platform to get the keg from here to there. A proud promenade across the garage and into the kegerator. There’s no flex in the plywood and those monster casters are ready for much much more…    …15,000 pounds or a ½ barrel of IPA, whatever it takes. 

P.S.

a few hours later

At the conclusion of the folly trolley’s maiden voyage that old thrift store skateboard said “I told you so” and proceeded to point out all the things that make him a better schlepper in this garage:

–The folly trolley is 9” off the ground

–The skateboard is only 4” tall which makes it easier for an old man to heft a full keg up and on board. 

–The folly trolley is 24” wide

–The skateboard is 8”

–At the tail end of the schlepp, there’s a hard right turn through a narrow doorway over a rough patch of uneven cement. 

-The skateboard can take this turn easily. 

-The folly trolley cannot. Not even close. It’s a chore to get through the doorway. 

The folly trolley will sit around and look for a reason to be more than a folly. But that old skateboard will probably continue to be the keg schlepper down here. 

Victor Van Epps photo

lingering odor

microwave popcorn

mini fridge

Wheatstone Bridge

whiter teeth

fresh breath

asbestos abatement

trust me

I’m a 

bike mechanic

orange whip?

bank statement

transactional interaction

inappropriate infatuation

barista bartender

coffee beer

neither here

nor there

anywhere everywhere

hiding in 

plain sight 

Burke Gilman

extraordinarily entitled 

division one

Big Ten

scholarship athletes

riding on

rideshare scooters

completely cluelessly

ride on 

right on

write on

moving on

turn on

toggle switch

get some

legal messenger

notary public

noxious weed

hearing examiner

judge’s mailroom

registered trademark 

copyright infringement

friendship bracelet

napkin ring

shock collar

place kicker

placeholder bookmark

dog ear 

pill bottle

placebo effect

permanent ink

skin deep

seven layers

lasts forever

it’s the 

same on

the weekends

as the

rest of

the days

what if

worst case

scenarios replay

ad nauseum

as if

material science

quantum computing

electric assist

learned helplessness

reverse peristalsis 

groundhog day

handi ramp

status quo

don’t bro

me bro

academic advisor

water damage

pretty good

tuna melt

really real

like like

down hill 

rotating mass

screw loose

righty tighty

turn signal

carbon copy

spitting image

mirror image

flip flop

acid reflux

phantom nostalgia

ass pocket

U lock

selective memory

infinitely variable

universal adjustable

language barrier

watered down

opinion piece

I heard

those guys

are dicks

When I finally quit this messenger shit, once and for all, I’m going to open a bike shop. A big bright historic space with huge store front windows and high ceilings and wood floors. With passive solar heating in the winter, and well placed shade in the summer. I’m going to work there all the time, six or seven days a week. The shop will be beautiful, stocked with every bike tool ever invented. French, Italian, Japanese, you name it, I will have it, hung neatly on the shop walls. Everything in its place. A place for everything. I will have two Campagnolo Cork Screws with Cherry handles. I will have seven different kinds of bike tool bottle openers. I will have four brands of headset presses. The 3000 square foot work space will have work stands and tools for 5 full-time mechanics, so I can work on 5 of my bikes all at once.  Two air compressors enclosed in sound proof cases. Truing stands bolted down to work benches 43.5 inches off the ground. I will have two Phil Wood spoke cutters/threaders. There will be cement floors and drains built in so I can hose it all down when the kegs overflow or the chainlube explodes or the cat pukes or the shit hits the fan. I will have shop dogs and shop cats. The bike book library will be monumental. The furniture will be well designed, attractive, comfortable and functional. There will be no non-dairy creamer. The coffee will be good. The beer will be cold. There will be wholesale accounts with everyone and everyone. Paul, Phil, Chris, Grant, Brooks, Mavic, Moots, Sachs, Sidi, Swobo. For me and my friends of course.

I will be at work all the time. I’ll show up 5:30am, or 3:00pm, or not at all. I’ll spend the night. I’ll stay for two weeks straight. Or take a week off if I feel like it. However, the shop will not be open to the public. The sign on the door will say “closed”, and if you flip it over it‘ll say “closed”. I’ll also have a large neon CLOSED sign, and it’ll be on all the time, like a beacon of freedom constantly sending its message, at all hours of the day and night. I’ll be in there working hard on my own bikes. Or on poetry, free lance writing, silk-screening, carpentry, cooking breakfast, pondering or drinking beer and pondering. The shop hours will not be posted. The phone will not be connected, so people cannot call and ask about the shop hours. And there will not be any employees because I won’t need any. This will eliminate any potential human relations issues, staff meetings, communication failures, personality problems, scheduling conflicts, and all the junior-high shit that goes along with trying to run a business with employees. Fuck that.

I will be in the shop but I won‘t be selling anything. Retail bullshit will not enter my sphere of existence. The windows will have incredible displays of bicycle art and elegant simple functional bikes because I like window displays. And I’ll spend hours creating them for my own enjoyment, not to attract customers. I‘ll be in the shop, reading the NY Times, listening to Miles Davis, or the White Stripes, or the Minute Men, or Bob Mould, or Guided by Voices, or Modest Mouse, or Guns n Roses or NPR and drinking coffee and beer and beer and coffee. Customers with stupid questions or flat tires or sheepskin seat covers or cracked carbon fiber forks can knock on the door all day long and I might even notice them between Hüsker Dü songs playing on the Bose Wave Radio, but probably not, and if I do, I’ll give them a half smile then get back to my work. My work as a sole proprietor and my work drinking beer and pondering.

The back door will be unlocked and open whenever I am in the shop and friends can stop by and bring their dogs and work on their bikes and add or subtract to the cold beer in the double wide Sub-Zero fridge or hit the bottomless pot of black coffee. The shop will include a beautiful stainless steel commercial sized kitchen. And a sleeping loft and an amazing bathroom with more magazines than a news stand, and I will not have to worry about customers fucking it up, because there will not be any customers.

###

I wrote that 21 years ago and it’s the same as it ever was. Written after I went to UBI in Ashland but before I actually worked in a bike shop.  

Yesterday I sent the link to this little ditty to two bike shop owners I know in Fremont: Free Range Cycles Shawna and Dr Chris Mischief Cycles.   Anytime I ride over to Fremont I get a little queasy when I roll past the old bakery that housed Mad Fiber and I think of Ric Hjertberg. I would send it to Ric too but he's busy preparing for the MADE show in PDX.  

All three of those people and places are points on the timeline of when I finally did quit that messenger shit once and for all, about 13 years ago. 

Sorry We’re Closed

Heavy (heavy) duty (duty)
Heavy duty rock and roll
Heavy (heavy) duty (duty)
Brings out the duty in my soul

       --Spinal Tap

I wasn’t in the market for heavy duty casters, they just happened to find me. Open to outcome, but not attached to outcome. Seek and you shall find. Or maybe they’ll find you. 

Adjacent to a loading dock I frequently frequent is a large dumpster full of random shit. It’s not a salvage pile, or a scrap metal pile or a surplus pile. It’s a dumpster full of shit and I get a nice view of it from atop the loading dock when I deliver the mail. 

One day a large caster caught my eye. Within 17 seconds I located the other matching three. Then a few hours later I returned to the dumpster and fished them all out. Hit for the cycle. 

I haven’t been able to locate exact matches for these things online. But similar casters sell for hundreds of dollars each and are rated to thousands of pounds each. Heavy (heavy) Duty (duty).  Each of these suckers weighs about 12 pounds. The plates up top are a quarter inch thick steel. Bomb proof. Over the top. 

I got them home a few weeks ago (in a car) and they’ve been lined up looking at me since. I had visions of bolting them onto a huge slab of live edge wood, like a 6” cross section of an old growth stump. Visualize the juxtaposition of nature and industry…  …an odd couple paired up and working well together. 

However that kind of went against my in situ resource utilization. I made a plan to stick to what I happened to have on hand.  I looked to my left and noticed this 28” x 24” double stacked plywood panel that I sliced off a table that I built several years ago. For a moment I contemplated slicing it down to bring it closer to the golden ratio. But the cost-benefit analysis quashed that notion. Or maybe it was laziness. I have some beefy lag bolts but they’re too long and I’d need to hack them down to size (labor intensive) So for the time being I’m using pan head screws and big washers that I found on the ground. 

The crow cutouts from Bret in ABQ keep coming in handy too. 

So far the total cost for this push-me pull-you roly poly folly trolley that’s rated to 15,000 pounds is ZERO dollars. Slapped together with stuff that was sitting around, in situ, in the garage.

I plan to give it a few coats of polyurethane and maybe install a rope handle. 

Book of the Week

As you begin your back to school shopping, be sure to toss this book in your basket. I believe it should be required reading for all middle school teachers. I’d even call it the book of the month, as I’ve already declared Joy Williams’ book, book of the year. 

Postcard of the Week

I’m a big postcard fan and a big big fan of this big postcard created by Bret in ABQ. It speaks to me on several levels and I have a sincere appreciation for the process and the layers of production. Spot on. From the discarded dental pick to the fork in the road to the crow bro. 

Beer of the Week

Bodhizafa IPA from Georgetown is pretty much the beer of the week 52 weeks-a-year around here but a slice of setting sun puts a slight variation on the Wheel Fanatyk cup theme. 

Nail-on Numbers of the Week

I have a soft spot for numbers in and out of context. These specific pairs speak to me for their history as those in the know know. Corndog 39, Doctor 37 Mike and way way back at Elliott Bay I was 07. Next time I visit that bin of address numbers I’ll be ringing up 867-5309. 

got my hands on a pair of new tires today: Kenda Kross 27” tires. I cannot remember the last time I got new, as in full-retail new tires covered in sprues, vent spews, tire nubs, nibs, nippers, spikes, sprouts, hairs, doo hickeys, by-products of injection molding as seen on new tires, not just new-to-me new tires. 

As this Shogun slowly transitions out of its test ride phase back into a ride-ride status I’m kinda questioning my decision to neo-retro throw it back to its 27” days. That certain stubborn sequence of events.  Each of those Kross tires cost more than I paid for this entire thing 11 years ago at BikeWorks. Just another leading economic indicator glowing red in my fleet of heavy steel non profit bike shop bikes. But I haven’t really ridden it yet. 

In other news I’m guessing about the spindle length on that 1987 loose ball square taper bottom bracket that’s still holding on because I’m about to swap it out for something 30 years younger… 

routine

route

rote

rut

we now join our regular routine, already in progress. 

please take a moment to locate the exit nearest you.

keep in mind, it may be behind you. 

simple elegant solutions

that’s the goal, the direction, the drift, that’s the river I’m pushing day to day, day in, day out. It’s hardwired into me. It’s muscle memory. It’s efficiency. I shave with Occam’s Razor a few times per week. I eat cheesy bean burritos seasoned with parsimony. I am the traveling salesman living out the electric ass traveling salesman problem in real time every fucking day illustrated in purple and gold on a scenic 700 acre campus. 

If I saw this bike on a bike rack I might doubletake and shake my head asking “what the fuck?” as I walked away.  But yesterday I saw this bike on the Big Time bike rack and because I know this guy, and you do too, I just chuckled because we were having a beer (plural)

As simple and elegant perhaps as it can be solving a problem that should not even exist in our world at this time. He invented a solution to a problem that he invented. Creating a mess just to show a way to sweep it under the rug. 

wait until you see him riding this thing as if it was meant to be

He may have found himself in a garage with a bunch of bike parts. And he may have said to himself what can I do? Better yet, what can’t I do?  That fork on that frame with those wheels. 

ridiculous

redonkulous

fuckin A+ 

87 photo bro

when it rains 

it pours

all those

becarefulwhatyouwishfors

all or none

fill or kill

win or lose

toggling 

toggles

toggle

01110011

binary

dichotomy

are those 

the only choices

where have you been?

where did you come from?

where did you go?

you and you plural

you and you two too

coo coo ca-choo

conspicuous

coincidences

coinciding

s i m i l a r 

similarities

simmering

spitting images

so they say

parallel lines

never meet

maintaining 

their distance

indefinitely

minding the gap

infinitely 

out in space

it’s true

in geometry textbooks

however

in art books

they grow nearer

running away together

lovin’ touchin’ squeezin’

each       other

on the horizon

through the

vanishing

point

.

seen through

a Monday morning

retrospective lens

And you may find yourself in another part of the world. And you may find yourself before a 15” highly polished stainless steel lowercase g. And you may find yourself with a mirror-image Burberry print lowercase g tattooed on your forearm. And you may ask yourself, am I right, am I wrong? And you may say to yourself, my god what have I done? 

any way you want it

that's the way you need it

any way you want it

don't over think it