it wasn’t the riser bar I really wanted. It was the riser bar I happened to have on hand. A handlebar swap setting off a sequence of events including cables and housing. The riser bar I might really want is sitting in a bucket in the back of the BikeWorks Warehouse. It could be at Recycled Cycles. It could be on Ebay. It could be in your garage. I don’t really know what it is. The rise. The sweep. It’s hard to define, but I’ll know it when I see it and ride it and feel it. The bar I had on there was great for all intents and purposes in appearance. It was cool but I was reaching out a country mile. This bike was weighed in the balance and found wanting, wanting you to slow down and enjoy the ride. This bike weighs a metric shit ton. This bike weighs as much as two of your bikes. This bike does well on flats and downhill. Don’t ask about the uphill ride back home. This bike makes you appreciate your other bike. This bike is a sunny afternoon stroll to the corner store for a six pack. This bike is a snowy morning roll around leaving goofy tracks aimlessly arcing in the snow with no place to go.
They were all sitting around getting loaded without a care in the world when a hand appeared out of nowhere and wrote a message on the wall. No one really knew what the message said so they summoned a panel of experts. After much deliberation, debate and drivel the experts got nowhere, they were all stumped. Then someone suggested they call Daniel. Daniel was an old timer, a regular, a ringer who knew what was what. So they lured him in with free beer.
Daniel took one look at the writing on the wall and said, “you’re fucked, that’s the gist of it” Then he drank a beer.
I know someone who knows someone that recently turned 50 and she celebrated the occasion at a McMenamins establishment in Portland. During those festivities, someone purchased something 3-D from the gift shop to gift to someone who got that McMenamins icon tattooed on his arm a while back. That gift merged seamlessly into his evolving mashup memento mori display spitting distance from the sink where he brushes his teeth with that tattooed arm.
got into a little back & forth with a friend the other day when she asked if I had any #8 back issues. No. no I do not. Fast forwarding to what if there was another issue of kickstand, a #23 and it came out in 2024. As if. What if. Neoretro bro. If I starting working on it today, this would be the working cover, invoking evoking revoking replaying rewinding regurgitating the theme on issue #8’s cover. Throwback Thursday, on Friday. Like riding a bike. Like learning to ride a bike with a couple friends to hold you up. Like getting by with a little help from Joe Cocker
we now join our regular routine, already in progress
December 20, 2023
Portrait of the Artist as a Commuter [bike]
Wednesday 12-20-23 6:39am
U-District Station
Narcissistically taking another selfie off-the-glass when the train pulled into the station. Staring at a device, just like every other mindless attention-span-diminished commuter. When I finally looked up, I realized I missed my stop.
Pulled this old poster from the archives the other day in a discussion about the revamped Bike Works logo design with another former Bike Works employee. But that’s another ball of wax worthy of discussion involving bike parts, physics and so-called graphic designers.
Yesterday I actually popped into the Bike Works warehouse at the tail end of a sale in search of Profile Design bottle cages. I didn’t find any of those but I pawed through a couple hundred other choices and bought 3 Bontrager RL cages for $9. They're similar to my beloved Profile Design in that they’ll secure your coffee, your beer and even your water bottle in a tasteful understated black composite cage.
Just a brief jaunt into the warehouse is enough to remind me of Seattle’s position atop an underground aquifer of seemingly endless bike donations. An embarrassment of riches. A bike town. A cycling culture that is constantly shedding its skin in search of the next next next new bicycle and all the accessories that’ll go with it. So they donate kickass bike stuff because it's “old”.
The Bike Works Warehouse is incredible. If you’re looking for something, they have it. They probably have 10 of them and they’re practically giving them away. I was eyeing a CoMotion tandem priced at $40. Visualizing shipping it to Iowa, riding RAGBRAI on it, then selling it for $300 in the end town.
Yesterday they did in fact give away 128 kids bikes in less than two hours on Beacon Hill. 128 kids in Seattle are now rolling around on bikes they didn’t used to have.
We still like beer, especially around the holidays. It’s been exactly two years since these little smokies pulled the tap handle and drained the entire keg onto the floor. Now there’s a spring-loaded-cat-resistant tap handle that makes it really difficult to drain the keg by accident. But never say never.
it’s all fun & games, until someone puts a price tag on it. Molly Foster sent me this t-shirt. Not the actual shirt. But the link
I’m dumbfounded
$177
One hundred and seventy seven dollars
I wonder how much this shirt sold for 40 years ago. But I'm the crusty old man whining about the price of coffee when I was your age.
I never worked at ABC but I was a legal messenger for 10 years and that's why I like how she spells messanger.
As I paw through everything I own, I do not believe there is any one clothing item in my closet that cost as much as $177. Much of it is thriftstore scores. But even at MSRP… …Outdoor Research hoodie? nope. Showers Pass rain jacket? Not quite. Rab puffer jacket? Maybe. But everything else. Dirt cheap. Nada. Nunca. Nicht. Nothing.
To judge a beer by its label is like judging a book by its cover, before you get a chance to crack it open and smell it, feel it, read it, taste it and take it all in. When it’s behind the glass and you can’t get your hands on it until you pay up, what else can you judge it by? The New York Times beer review? A recommendation from a friend? Past experience? A good old gut feeling?
Flying Lion makes great labels for their cans --designed by this guy --which make great peel & stick postcards when you’re done with the beer. And their beer is pretty good too.
I’d like to think of this woman bracing herself against a wall on the backside of Benaroya Hall being blasted by wind and rain and cursing her existence while pondering a move to Austin or Boise or Iowa City. FUCK FUCK FUCK THIS FUCKING FUCK… …FUCK SEATTLE. But she’s not just holding onto any old wall, she’s posted up on the wonderful wonderful wonderful wall. But of course, that’s all in my mind. As this is a stock photo from an old psychology textbook that I’ve probably already shared with you, more than once.
Today this photo jumped out at me, again, for some reason. Maybe because my socks are still soaked from Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday too.
Sunrise: 7:45
Sunset: 4:15
Bathed in an atmospheric river of rain it doesn’t really matter. Ask me about my conspicuity. Don’t ask me if it’s raining.
Alistair sent me this yesterday and it brought on some flashback whiffs of acetone and phantom carbon fiber slivers in all five fingers of my non-dremel tool hand.
If you make it through the talking talkity talk you just might see some still shots of your friends in the end. The shot I took of Peter’s bike 12 years ago is right behind Benjamin Hall at UW, spitting distance from the Mailing Services Mothership. Who knew?
got the triptych. Pausing briefly just to see a man about a horse. You know, on the Ave, that man about that elephant. Sincerely for real, really. I saw an elephant painting at ye olde surplus store yesterday for $3 and nothing says Big Time like an elephant says Big Time. So I bought it and hand delivered it to the proprietor in a large plastic bag to fend off the rain, leaving the price tag in place to add authenticity. An early Christmas present delivered via bicycle.
This threepeat compilation took longer than expected because I got a flat tire on the Specialized. A slow leak on a Friday's commute home. Perfect timing. If there is such a thing as a perfectly timed flat tire. It took me 17 days to get around to fixing it. That’s laziness and the luxury of having 5 commuter bikes to choose from. Four with full fenders.
When I hit for the cycle, you’ll see these shots again.
