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

denial

directly proportional to personal investment

taking it personally

all the way to point B

a well defined beginning & end

sandwiching an engaging experience

a sense of accomplishment

back where you started

the bandwagon crowd got a bit smaller this season 

but now it's back up to capacity 

no fluffy trendy shit

not just the look & feel 

it's the real deal

really

for real 

a pilderwasser tradition since 2006 

Columbia City   Hilman City    Atlantic City

riding a bike on Rainier Avenue feels like suck

especially on the longest night of the year 

at the Bike o Rama about 100 kids will walk through that door and get a bike to take home. This photo is just a hint  a whiff a sample of what will go down on Saturday and it's a sight to see.

it's only one facet of the Bike Works jewel but it's really fucking cool to see those kids and those families walk out with their bikes and their smiles.

all I want for Christmas is a Todd Beamer slouch beanie 

 got this trusty Timex when I turned off my flip phone and took a 12-year step into the present day with a 4G blah blah blah device that does way too much but actually costs less each month because a big part of phantom flip phone syndrome is reaching into my pocket to check what time it is on that cute little digital screen that lights up when I press the button.

reaching for it but it's not there

ask me about:

phantom ass pocket U-lock syndrome

phantom nostalgia syndrome

Peter Pan syndrome

here is the photo retrospective from 5 or 7 or 8 years ago that we discussed earlier    all these shots were within spitting distance of Monorail 

 sprucing up a seemingly endless string of aluminum front suspension upright comfort hybrids when I finally get my hands on some old steel it just feels better. This Trek 400 was hand built in Waterloo 30 years ago and now it’s cleaned up and ready to roll for another 30 years.

just kidding.

you won't see that shit here.

what's hot    what's not

      trending ... 

twinkle  twinkle   blah  blah  blah    e t c 

 the same 27 keywords keep popping up here because they mean something to me it’s not that I’m SEOing or maybe I am and I have been since before search engines existed. Finding what works and working it into the ground.

7 speed thumb shifters

they work for me

7 speed cassettes spaced out on 8 9 10 freehub bodies

walking the walk long before talking the talk

the same old photos keep popping up here because they mean something to me moving forward looking back. looking to the future through the framework of the past filling in the gaps with 5-gallon buckets of structural spackle applied with a straight blade shovel and smoothed over by the nostalgically gauze filtered hazy history of selective memory.

those were the days?? really?

maybe

i’ve had a 3.2 megapixel camera for 10 years because it worked for me as well as flipping a flip phone when I finally got around to getting a cell phone and now and now and now what the fuck am I doing holding a mega megapixel camera that makes funny noises and if I hold it against my face I can talk into it and hear voices if I can just figure out how to turn it on or off.

skuffing along dragging my feet into the 21st century

curmudgeonly

Chris Murray photo

when it's 27 degrees in December

it's important to remember

to work a little RAGBRAI into the day   

Happy

Birthday

Blu 

Bike Works

Warehouse SALE

Sunday   January 25, 2015

ambidextrously giving or getting two thumbs up from our lady of long sleeves    

living mindfully in the margins of utility 

an Italian-made thriftstore sweater silkscreened by pilderwasser for $170 less than that which they call a bike jersey 

note the official NFL SanFrancisco 49ers pacifier

sucky sucky long time 

what day is it?  

to put a finger on it

don't ask questions

swallow it whole

BUY    BUY   BUY

black Friday 

shopping days 'til Christmas

giving them the finger ten times or just once on each finger it’s how you figure your fingers firmly fixated on the hole in the donut unable to see the whole donut but a swift kick in the balls helps one take one step back and refocus with a grease smudged lens and a new hitch in the get along low sodium black olives add salt to taste

 saw a pair of tuxedo cats on Stevil’s site the other day and it reminded me of a brother sister pair I had on hand for 17 years or so     so I went looking for pictures of my cats in my photographic memory and I found a photo of Brad with a lowercase g theme which reminded me of other things and things other

colors are cool

but the names of colors really get to me

personally                  retrospectively

a few things about my 2006 stand out 

Sand Dollar is not one of them  

 flipping the calendar page to November and preparing to synchronize all the analog clocks on the wall to make another long dark winter deposit in the daylight savings bank makes me pause to reflect and celebrate an arbitrary milestone a random goal set up to knock down with wearing short pants every day for six months no matter what because it doesn’t really matter because I can because I could because I did because everyday is was and will be because today is my Casual Friday and they’re not just short pants they are Dickies Original 874® Work Pants cut off just right

 this is a shifter demo I created last week. Once again inspired by the Community Cycling Center in PDX. Seattle always seems to be trying to  catch up to Portland on transportation issues.

 I have a fondness for tubes of steel welded together to make things simple   graceful   useful.

I am without sufficient information

therefore cannot comment on the situation

but I'm curious  

parallel lines never actually touch they only appear to at that vanishing point your junior high art teacher told you about in addition I’m not really into cars but I can sincerely say Vanishing Point is a cool movie and arbitrary goal setting goals sitting on the horizon are as worthy as anything making it up as we go along because in the end it’s all horseshit or is that the beginning  like wearing short pants everyday for six months because you can because your pants can’t get wet if you’re not wearing any  it’s about following through and doing what you say you’re going to do because I won’t fucking forget what you said and you only have to say it once perception is reality  really until the next morning when you can see straight

 I’ve been putting some effort into the construction of this bolt circle diameter totem as seen in the photo above. To the untrained eye these are just a bunch of chainrings hanging on nails on a post. But take a closer look. Each chainring is hanging on a 5-bolt or 4-bolt circle corresponding exactly to its bcd. Ideally there is no way to fuck it up. For the employees or volunteers sorting through piles of used bike part shit it’s easy to put the chainring where it belongs and there’s no need to measure and label and guess the bcd (plus or minus 3 hand written on a scrap of masking tape in purple sharpie). just find the bcd pattern that fits and hang it up. And for the customer it’s easy to find what they’re looking for.

put up this picture for the past 7 consecutive Octobers

can't stop now

traditionally when Halloween falls on a Friday, pumpkin burnout results from attending costume parties 5 weekends in a row. pumkins went on sale last weekend, got to make room for Christmas retail displays.  

the rotator cuff is a group of muscles and tendons working together with group of bones and ligaments in your shoulders. it's actually pretty amazing that all that shit works itself out kinda like that 5-way intersection at the top of Queen Anne. a bus load of PhDs can only get close to replicating the human shoulder and except when I think of Brett Favre in a Jets uniform, it's not someting I've given much thought to until it started hurting and when I say it I mean my shoulder.

But with a few ibuprofen and some duct tape it should be ok

ok 

I got my custom made Double Darn hat back today... 

...i could tell you a story and maybe i will soon but it would be over 114 characters and beyond the attention span of the average internet consumer. in any case I'm glad to have my hat back

Double Darn caps are hand made in Portland by Misia Pitkin  

pumpkins are great     when they're 80% of your body weight 

ran into this guy in Greenwood on Friday

he hasn't changed a bit in the 7 years since this photo

 Bike Works is teaming up with New Belgium Brewery to give local cyclists free tune-ups at local bars in the area. These bicycle happy hours will feature the Bike Works roving BikeMobile bike repair truck. Come visit us at one of the following happy hours and we will tune-up your bike for FREE! Stop by, grab a New Belgium beer, kick back and let the us take care of your bike!

Dates and Locations:

• October 10th – Chuck’s Hop Shop Greenwood: 656 NW 85th St Seattle, WA 98117

• October 17th – Chuck’s Hop Shop Central District: 2001 E Union St Seattle, WA 98122

• October 24th – The Pine Box: 1600 Melrose Ave, Seattle, WA 98122

• November 7th – The Nickerson Saloon: 318 Nickerson St Seattle, WA 98109

Time (for all locations): 5:00pm – 7:00pm

Cost: FREE (but donations are accepted)

Free Bike Tune-Up consists of:

Free Safety Tune: (Check tightness of all fasteners on bike, adjust brakes and shifting, lube chain, and inflate tires)

Free Individual Services:

• Tube Installation

• Brake Adjustment (*excluding hydraulic brake bleeds)

• Derailleur Adjustment

• Hub Adjustment

• Bottom Bracket Adjustment

• Headset Adjustment

• Quick Wheel True

• Chain Installation

this was totally cut & paste-poached from the Bike Works site because it’s for real   really.

I’ll be there and there and there and there too.

it's 10-9 Day and 87 is 40 fucking years old

Happy Birthday Justin

in the 17 years we've known each other  you haven't aged a bit 

on Tuesday Craig Etheridge sent this proof of him having his cake and photographing it too on his way out of Lane Powell.

Craig assures me it's the same as it ever was which is comforting in it's own weird warped whacked where am I way that is the alternate reality of the Lane Powell mail room.    

I visited a lot of large law firms back in the day mostly in their mail rooms which were kind of like the bottom bracket of the bike...  dirty gritty rusty and not too glamorous but the place where shit gets done and I identify with that but Lane Powell's mail room was always just a bit off for some hard to put a finger on reason.  

 pilderwasser HQ

because there are so many digits in the address

today I wore knee warmers
not because it was that much colder
but because the calendar said October

from the wiki:

 "The human philtrum, bordered by ridges, is also known as the infranasal depression, but has no apparent function. That may be because most higher primates rely more on vision than on smell and so no longer need a wet nose pad or a philtrum to keep the nose pad wet."

" In Jewish mythology, Lailah, the Angel of Conception, lightly taps the infant's upper lip before birth, whereupon the infant forgets the Torah she has taught it. Some people speculate that this is the cause of the philtrum, but it does not have a basis in traditional Jewish texts."

it puts the lotion on its skin

you may recall, back in December I got my hands on an old KLEIN and made a couple cheater bars out of it as seen in the S.Neil Larsen photo above

and then    and then    lightning struck again    in almost exactly the same place    yesterday I got my hands on a KLEIN Quantum digitized below and made a cheater bar from the down tube and mounted it on the wall like an overpriced pink-fade-to-purple tubular trophy.

be change    see change    sea change

I don't see a lot of bike commuters on my bike commute. The bikes I see are mostly lycra spandex team kit two abreast pleasant conversation drowned out by the sound of $3000 freehub bodies whirring. they're not commuters, they're dentists from Clyde Hill or attorneys from Woodinville or software engineers from Beaux Arts making their way around the lake just passing quickly through 98178

and all that is OK               but

I'm the guy riding the other way

not many cargo bikes in this zipcode but there will be some day

I prefer simple solutions, clean lines and no bullshit. Like taking the hypotenuse through the park.  Like shaving with Occam's razor once a week or so. Like wearing a black t-shirt.

Sometimes complications to the simple life are unavoidable, sometimes they're comical and sometimes they really suck.

Take a track bike and weld on a derailleur hanger so you can use it to mount a chain tensioner to run it singlespeed. Roundabout backtracking waste of time fucking-it-up when it was fine to begin with.

Take a garden hose to water the flowers and go out a buy a $43 attachment that sprays in 7 different patterns when all you really needed to modulate the flow of water was your thumb   which was free.

I found the simple life  aint so simple

another Christy Hardin photo because it's fucking awesome and because I know her and I know that guy in the bib shorts with the tan lines and the head band and because it's important to get a little RAGBRAI into your daily life each day you're living

this is my sister's movie

you can see it on the big screen September 27 in Seattle

look for it   at film festivals near you soon

today's my Friday

four years ago this week I set down my Nextel and walked away

and I never thought I'd be eating dirt     in Rainier Beach  today

the guys at DANK bags sent me this photo today  

and this is the Seattle team's winning bike design from the recent Oregon Manifest urban utility bike thing and as you can see the similarities are uncanny

that's Bill Brady an exclusive dealer of pilderwasser apparel in and around the 50112  in the month of July 

in this photo from Bret in ABQ I'd like to draw your attention to the DANK bags toptube pad with a pilderwasser design silkscreened on it some time in the last 7 to 10 years as well as Bret's bottle cage set up for rides along the coffee-beer continuum. 

764-HERO : high-flange Campy hubs   ::

36 hole three-cross : child-proofing the home

taken out of context   then    put back in

then taken out   and     put back in again

and again and then again someplace else

that hub is the only Campy thing I own 

Bret in ABQ  photo

as pilderwasser HQ slowly recovers and recoils and rebuilds better than ever two zipcodes deeper south I need some filler some motivation some confirmation. I would like to see some photos of shirts and jerseys and merino wool sweaters in situ. Shaggy in Milwaukee and Jason in the Bay Area and hey Matt Case how about something from PDX and Bill Brady what about you too and you two too. 

peace be with you

it used to look like this and I knew exactly where to find things

now it's all in random milk crates, boxes and plastic bags

she's tidied up and I can't find anything 

Rainier Beach is the new Friday

that's Shaggy at the WestSide 2009

and on 8/20/14  Shaggy said this:

"Wow what a treat to receive $39 plus postage and handling's worth of time-capsuled spew printed on touch it it's real it's cheap paper in the mail. A big ol' thanks to you mr. official imprint for the trip down I was livin that dream then I'm still livin that dream now holy shit mason looks so young Lane. I would guess the timing of it all bein so close to 815 day seems coincidental till I note the senders affection for the days of yore still a day I adore woulda gotten it then but it looks like it got returned to sender for amendments and do it different next times that got fixed up but only by the 19th of august. just another monday until the gift of printed gab and the men's medium still slim still fit after all these years all those beers showed up like Michael J Fox at the pinewood mall unexpected unannounced is it the future or the past it's all the same to me . But can I wear it for work? things are a little different here on the third coast my boss might have thought it was a great work shirt in 2000 but that was then this is now he only sees me twice a week his choice not mine and when he does I look all 1999 rookie at Rainbow Courier in Columbus OH with the collared shirt minus the necktie and the mountain bike but still it seems like I might make better tips in a collar not a dog collar but I'm on someone's leash isn't it his? I didn't make tips then but my dick still stank."

do what you love

the money will follow

that thing you love

out the window

8-19-14 photo via Tom Chapel 

pilderwasser HQ in the midst of upheaval a subtitle to the urban renewal just a gentrification side effect of the Central District's recent popularity as long-time-rental houses like ours get fake-as-fuck facelifts and sell for five-hundred-thousand dollars with a half gallon of spackle here and 32 tubes of caulk there they're on and off the market in 6 hours or less. seriously.

moving another zipcode or two further south to the last frontier of affordable housing: Atlantic City.

back in the day the interurban railway connected Atlantic City, Hillman City and Columbia City to downtown Seattle as well as many other neighborhoods north and east of the CBD. then they tore it all out to make way for the future, the automobile, the gas-powered bus. the future comes full circle     again.

as we hurry up and wait to move to another house I'm living in my own private urban renewal up to my elbow in Pantone 17-1463 Tangerine Tango all over my favorite picnic table. I recently learned it was Pantone color of the year for 2012 and as usual I'm so three-years-ago but upon further review I was actually years ahead of the trend and I'm sticking with it for another fresh coat because it still works for me and I'll ride it into the ground until I can't ride it anymore until the trends come back around

full circle       again. 

When I was an underemployed hourly legal messenger I had plenty of down time to sit around and among other things get some reading done and keep up with The New Yorker each week. But that's no longer the case.

The TV by Ben Loory was published in the April 12, 2010 issue of The New Yorker and, no joke, just last week I actually had a chance to read it.

It's the all-time greatest piece of short fiction that I've read in the last 7 to 10 days.

Multiple snippets of it resonate and will stick with me like taking the kids down to the bus stop seven hundred times, and he drives the bus to school. Drunk, sober, hungover, on acid, pot, cocaine, uppers and downers, or nothing at all—it doesn’t matter in the least—

these are all Christy Hardin photos from within on and around RAGBRAI because it never gets old it comes around every year and thank you Chris Murray for the heads up      that's my RB-1 the one that carried me across Iowa in 2007 2008 2009 and 2011 and now under new ownership it's getting a few more RAGBRAIs to notch in its lipstick case

after 4 days away

I am now re-calibrated

so I got that goin for me

which is nice

the team from Seattle won the Ultimate Urban Utility bike thing

I voted for the bike from SF

 every little thing in Seattle -even in the Central District especially in the Central District- is getting expensive and average joes have to pack up their homes and work spaces and move South or North or East or West

Chris Murray photo

got my hands on this book yesterday as it was delivered to my doorstep straight from Jason Gardner at New World Library. (he's kind of a big deal) 

It's almost three years old but more and more relevant every day. I'm behind the curve on a lot of things but so far ahead of the new-bike-culture-curve it's like I'm behind again. 

with 50 chapters there's something here for everyone and all in an attractive little package with rounded corners. 

it's not a sign post in the distance to sprint for

it's not a plateau to rest upon

it's a "daily battle against the accretion of tiny entropies"

A coworker of mine has photocopied flyer on the wall in her office, it's a poached image of Messenger 29 and all it says is

Alleycat Race

June 5, 1999

In May of 1999 I made a stack of those 11" x 17" photocopies and Devlin and I put them up in bars and bike shops around town. The posters were intentionally vague as it was mostly a word-of-mouth thing and those that actually showed up to race or party knew someone that knew someone.

However at least one of those posters paid-off when a rep from Red Bull called me (on a land line) to offer me cash and product for the race and party. We weren't asking him for prizes, he somehow found out who was doing the alley cat and got the number for Wa Legal and gave us $200 in cash and cases of Red Bull and suggested we use some of the money to buy vodka because that mixed with his energy drink was all the rage in 1999.

The winner of the race (Mike Dodge) got $100 cash and a trophy while 2nd place (Brad Lewis) got $50 cash. With the $5 entry fees we had enough cash left over to buy vodka, two kegs of Elysian beer and plenty of hot dogs with matching buns and such.  It was a party more than a race. Just one of the many raging parties that took place at that 19th Ave East house.

 Tim Mason used to ask questions that went a little something like this: "why race in local crits and win a box of Clif Bars when you can race in alley cats and win cash and prizes and plane tickets all over the world??"

Today when I look at this photo from the end of the race it makes me stop and think and do a little gut-check check-in and kind of count on my fingers how long ago 1999 was. How many of these people have since passed away? (here's to Brad and Devlin) How many of these people are now attorneys? What the hell is that guy doing now? Where is she these days? and so on and so on.

I delivered one of those alley cat flyers to Bike Works in 1999 when Adam Smith worked there and it has been on various walls in various rooms ever since. Into Adam's hands then adopted by Suzanne and now on the wall in Tina's office. That little flyer brings me full circle.

Jason and Donald and Kurt and Chris your patience will be rewarded and thank you for standing by. after the dust settles here at HQ...           ...I'll let you know when XL shirts come in.  

there's a pilderwasser RAGBRAI jersey on eBay today and I'm not the seller but I'd like to know who is. I used to sell t-shirts on eBay but then it got too expensive so I got my own site

10 years later here you are

you are here 

here's how I feel 

about silkscreening T-shirts and innovation and staying fresh and competetive and relevant in today's marketplace

I hope this guy is still rocking his pilderwasser shirt

vote for your favorite   before August 3

Last night I got a good look at Seattle's entry in the Oregon Manifest Ulitimate Utility Bike design competition. The bike has lots of do-dads and tricky tricks integrated. The handlebar acts as a lock and there are wheel brushes instead of full fenders and the designers claim these will keep the water off your ass.

You can see all 5 cities' bike designs on the Oregon Manifest site next week and vote for your favorite before August 2.

I didn't get any photos. But I got some souvenirs and some expensive beers and got to talk with some old messenger friends and I ran into Ian. Pickle-Juice-Vodka-Ham-Cream-Cheese-Pickle-Roll-Yerba-Mate-RAGBRAI-2008-Ian. He's in Seattle spreading the word of the Bicycle Benefits program.

This is a great reminder to work a little RAGBRAI into your daily life. Only 357 days until the next one. 

It's a small world after all. It's a small small world.

This photo Craig Etheridge took a few days ago reminds me of another photo that's burned into my photographic memory, a photo taken 7 or 8 years ago, the photo seen below.

It actually rained in Seattle this week after a long long dry spell and all this stuff reminds me of riding in the rain working in the rain standing around drinking ice cold beer in the rain wearing wet socks at 8am in the rain on the way into work with 9 more hours of rain to go.

Is it raining? 

people pulling plastic bags onto their heads reminds me of Heaven's Gate and trying catch a ride on a space ship trailing the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997

Bill Brady photo

RAGBRAI 2014 is rolling as we speak
the pilderwasser collective is having a great time
wish I was there

looking to the future through the framework of the past
not really looking back but being aware of what's behind
looking over shoulder without plowing into parked car
fucking it up and taking notes as to never do it again
looking in the cheesy little rearview mirror
that is distorted by memory
feeling phantom
n o s t a l g i a
syndrome

Red Rooster Bicycle   142 NW Canal Street   is for sale 

the current owner is looking to sell the shop in the next couple months as he prepares for a round-the-world bike tour.  the buyer can take over the location and inventory. Seriously for real. Really.

If you've ever worked in a bike shop or spent some time around bikes you gotta admit the thought has at least crossed your mind. Then you do some math and the thought goes away.

The idea has come up in my mind more than a few times over the past 12 years or so. 

 Rainier Beach is the new Central District 

I want to change the name to Beer Kali park.

It's not about sister cities it's about tall boys

AFP photo from Velonews  

Although I've never been a Contador fan I do not mean to discount the terrible nature of his crash, the severity of his injuries and his long road to recovery. Going from the peak of racing form and conditioning to a hospital bed sucks.

Contador dropped out of the Tour, has a broken leg and needs surgery but his broken bike frame seems to be getting way more attention.  Which kind of makes sense to me because I'm giving the busted bike way more of my attention.

Bike racing has been around as long as bikes have been around. People that make bikes want people to buy their bikes and one of the best ways to get consumers to see those bikes is to put the bikes under really fast riders in really big races.

The theories and speculation on how and why Contador's bike frame broke are amusing to me and the evolving "official" stories from Specialized are even more amusing.  

this is Neil's new pilderwasser T-shirt released into the wild yesterday and a photo of it in situ may follow someday but for now there's a photo of it drying on a lawnchair in the sun. simple and understated yet profound and meaningful.

still waters run deep. 

choose the blue
free refills on your prescription
as long as you don't ask questions

choose the red
and you're on your own
to push the river of question without answer 

kickstand #19 Fall 2004       $37.00

this handy piece of bike messenger history comes with a one-of-a-kind gently used real deal retro made in Canada Windsor Wear short sleeve base layer (90% wool 10% nylon) mens small snuggly and wicked warm featuring the kickstand #8 cover design silkscreened by hand on the front. this base layer will look good in the rain after a cross race in November under your jersey. it's much like something Mike Neel might have worn on a chilly autumn fixed gear training ride as seen on the cover of kickstand #19.

 kickstand #11 Spring 2000     $39.00

this heaping helping of Seattle messenger history, the dickstank issue, from the salad days of zine production chock full of photos of your friends that are now attorneys and doctors. it's one of two original notarized copies known to still exist in captivity and comes with a one-of-a-kind dickstank T-shirt featuring the understated one word design silkscreened by hand front & center on a mens medium slim fit Hanes comfort blend tagless T-shirt 60-40 cotton-poly blend. this shirt will look good at a summer wedding reception under a bowling shirt as seen at Matt & Clair's wedding. 

 I am ready to sell out.

prices include shipping in the USA or hand delivery via bicycle if you live on my habitrails

PayPal is OK but please make sure they're not sold before you send payment. My cutting edge inventory tracking system is highly sophisticated but has a considerable lag time.

There is only one of each set available.

email me maybe

pilderwasser at msn dot com

sometimes the bike commute is the best part of the work day

and that's OK

220 221      whatever it takes

 ...These events play out not on the grand stage of history but the small rooms of his workplace and home. The deepest lesson of “Stoner” is this: What makes a life heroic is the quality of attention paid to it.

...there is something distinct and thrillingly subversive in the resurgence of “Stoner.” I am no doubt overstating the case, as fanatics do, but I find it tremendously hopeful that “Stoner” is thriving in a world in which capitalist energies are so hellbent on distracting us from the necessary anguish of our inner lives. “Stoner” argues that we are measured ultimately by our capacity to face the truth of who we are in private moments, not by the burnishing of our public selves. It is, in other words, a searing condemnation of our current cultural moment — one that happens to have been written nearly 50 years ago.

New York Times Magazine ---you should read this book

approaching it from another angle
arriving at the same conclusion
take my hypotenuse              please

queue Morgan Freeman voice-over wikipedia quote here:

"By combining multiple observers, theories, methods, and empirical materials, researchers can hope to overcome the weakness or intrinsic biases and the problems that come from single method, single-observer and single-theory studies."

the dream usually takes a variation on the theme of riding to work still groggy and all the street names have changed but the signs look the same and I don't notice because I pay no attention to street names I just follow patterns and lines and cut through parks and then I'm at work and things look the same but the smell is slightly off in an amusing way and  nothing seems too challenging until I go to true a wheel and the spoke wrenches don't fit although they appear to be the same old sizes red green & black just like the day before only none of them do the trick except the rounding-off-strip-the-nipple trick and then and then and then I realize it's not a dream    

what day is it?

the street names haven't changed but all the houses have been torn down and each one replaced with 4 three-story town houses and several multi-family mixed-use street-level retail off-street parking buildings near the light rail stations 

today I rode an urban utility bike to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned. I have no high resolution photos or slow motion video or diagrams to document the trip but I'm pretty sure it actually happened.

They say cleaning your bike is like cleaning your toilet is like cleaning your teeth --- if you stay on top of it, it's no big deal but if you let 7 years slide by, it kinda sucks.

this Oregon Manifest bike design thing pits teams from 5 cities in a competition to design the ultimate urban utility bike. On July 25 the bikes will be simultaneously revealed but separately      one in each of the cities: Chicago, New York, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco.   The Seattle bike will be at Axis in Pioneer Square and I plan to be there     because I like bikes.

This kind of thing interests me in an oversized-glossy-coffee-table-book way. In a wine-sippy cheese-nibbly chin-strokey black-turtlenecky art gallery way. However, I really believe an Ultimate Urban Utility bike is any old fucking bike that gets ridden every fucking day in the city by a normal person. It's not some shiny pretty thing that will ultimately be purchased by Jeff Bezos to hang from the ceiling of his latest employee lounge. It's not some over analyzed specimen in a graduate school physics lab. It's not a centerfold in Cog magazine.

This kind of thing interests me because I spend my work days reconfiguring Giant Iguanas and GT Karakorams and Raleigh Techniums into urban utility bikes that sell for $253 and get ridden by actual people every day in this city. 

This kind of thing interests me because I ride an urban utility bike to work every day.

In the universe of cycling I live on a planet in a utility cycling galaxy but its living conditions and constraints differ greatly from the ones that these design teams inhabit.  
 

16 hour days of Summer in Seattle 

come close to completely compensating for those

16 hours of darkness in the winter

pilderwasser T-shirts since 1991

Figure 668a:  red keg cup-o-rama XLV

spotted an Alpental in the 98122 today and had to assume it was one of the W Hotel software sales team building exercise Torkers that passed through my sphere of existence a couple months ago or one of the 55 Torkers that we put together a short time later

I didn't take this picture but I might have assembled the bike out of the box

round trip out & back back back where we started know no forward progress no linear progression no tangible results missing that sense of accomplishment looking back at the end of the day to say "look what I did today" something solid something real something to sink your teeth into spin spin spinning pushing the river treading water floating stasis static status quo bro misdirected energy join a gym buy a new outfit take a class climate controlled recreation fluorescent lighting ventilation trying too hard to try not to try too hard

just go outside and go for a bike ride

one man's new years resolution

another man's laundry rack 

exterior stationary bike shots pay homage to Erik Jahnz's shot of CB

say hello to my little friend, the Salsa stem on the RB-1 as seen in 2008 on a deluxe pit stop now it's sold to another RAGBRAI rider and I wish I had it back it's been three years since I sat on Jimbo's porch since I sat on that green and black and white short bus and it's like an uncontrollable urge I wanna tell you all about it can't happen this year but can I sign up for 2015 right now today???  ya mo be there 

last month the calendar month of May 2014 this little non-profit bike shop in Columbia City brought in $64,000. If you work in a big bike shop that sells new bikes you're thinking big fucking deal (bfd) but let me assure you that this is a big fucking deal in the context of Bike Works history and in programs of its kind it's kind of a big deal. May 2014 was the all time biggest month ever at Bike Works and if you told Adam Smith or Suzanne Carlson in 1998 that this same little janky cockeyed yellow house bike shop on Ferdinand Street would some day bring in over half a million dollars in a $1 million dollar annual budget I think they'd smile and say have another beer because I was there in 1998 as a volunteer wrenching on shitty kids bikes. This is a Big Fucking Deal. $64,000 is a lot of flat fixes and tune-ups and a whole lot of refurbished bikes.

this is just a taste a hint a whiff of the wide selection of jerseys and T-shirts that will be available in the 50112 through my exclusive importer-exporter pilderwasser dealer (the guy seen in the yellow jersey below) on a cash-only one time this time it's for real basis on Jimbo's front porch for that great bike ride across Iowa in July. I've done more silkscreening in the last 3 days than the last 3 years and for a few moments it felt like I volunteered to do the grapes of wrath alley cat shirts or all those west side invite 2009 shirts  screening so many things in so many sizes and colors but photos of shirts on hangers are so boring in two months time I will be showing you other people's photos of these jerseys and skirts and t-shirts in action eating pork loins bigger than your head drinking ice cold beer from 12oz cans and riding bikes across Iowa

Chris Murray photo natch

went to a party last night on the 7th floor deck between the two towers of the via 6 building at 6th & Lenora and couldn't help but think of my favorite gravel pit. the photos above may help jog your memory to what 6th & Lenora used to look like.  this little par-tay was a glimpse into what Seattle has become   is becoming    will be     overlooking all the construction for the Amazon triple towers and the giant transparent  golf ball plaza.

Lane Kagay asked recently if I was a caveman. I am a retro-grouch luddite caveman and I've been living under a rock for the past 4 years. this slice of Seattle does not excite me or entice me.  

stage right : drive side

stage left: non-drive side

Figure 177: triple stack 

Thursday is the new Saturday

mark your calendar

 for the most part I prefer simple elegant direct solutions. However I do appreciate the wise use of readily available resources and creativity. in addition street theater entertainment and  the spinning of a good yarn are worth something too, especially when we've got nothing better to do.

strapped junior and junior-junior into the bike trailer yesterday and for the first time ever attached it to my bike and took them to Judkins to swing on some swings and eat some raisins in the grass. we heard some whistles and clacking and smacking in the distance and went to see what it was. I hoisted junior out of the trailer to peer over the boards so she could watch one or two minutes of bike polo while junior-junior kept slumping and slipping and slouching down in the trailer causing his helmet to cover his eyes and half his face but he couldn't see over the boards anyway then we went to another park and I thought about what used to be tennis courts and what used to be bike polo which for me was much like a campfire just something to sit around and stare at and drink beer but it never appealed to me as an activity more than kicking rocks or cross country skiing.

they were still "tennis" courts in 2009

bike polo in Seattle looked like this in 2005

the one and only time I tried playing bike polo was at this Magnuson Park goldsprint thingy years ago and that was enough for me

when I hear Gravity Bar I think of the Broadway Market in the early 90s and wheat grass shots and tofu scrambles and yellow curry and Michael Stipe popping in for a snack just walking over from Bad Animals to the other-other Gravity Bar around 2nd & Virginia ish         when you say Gravity Bar that's what I think of    not just another 31.8 riser bar from the beefy side of FSA but the CETMA now has a Gravity bar and it's really cool. it's the ticket.  after two years of experimentations iterations and permutations    this is the one.  Five years ago I wouldn't leave the house with a handlebar any wider than 18 inches. This thing is pushing 29" and it feels just about right just a bit wider than the cargo bucket         

things remind me of other things

Over the past couple years    within the walls of a small non-profit community bike shop     I've refurbished hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bikes. Many of them have blended and blurred together in a hazy foggy soupy slurry of new cables & housing, brake pads, chains, tubes, tires, rusty reach adjustment screws and sleep deprivation. But this Univega Specialissima is one of those bikes that stands out   in the crowd. A bike   if seen   locked-up outside the post office    I would instantly know     as one   into which  I poured a couple hours of my life  and it didn't feel like, as Stevil described the assembly of entry level bikes - dying a little bit - as it does with all the chunky clunky aluminum front-suspsension mountain bikes I've put my hands on.  

The Specialissima was a top-shelf sport-touring bike from the early 80's that was built for Univega by Miyata. The origianl owner of this Specialissima bought it at Gregg's and gently rode it here and there before it sat in the garage for 25 years or so. It's got all the braze-ons and do-dads and plenty of clearance for giant tires and fenders. And now it's free to roam the streets again. You might see it around town for the next 30 years or so

pay no mind to those handlebars a country mile high       the frame & fork are where it's at        long-point lugs with hand painted diamond cutouts and a fork crown Grant Peterson would admire

 the complete bike is $405 at Bike Works

got my hands on some rainbow ti spokes but they're not really rainbow they're more like purple fade to gold but commonly refered to as rainbow and they're really short and there are only 15 of them not enough to build a wheel not enough to build half a wheel even and too short for anything but a 20 inch radially laced so I could have wrapped a rubber band around them and tossed them in the corner for 10 or 20 years or something but I decided to bend them in squiggles and swirls and plant them in a block of wood and call it art.

the red one is a 36 hole high flange Campy hub laced to ye olde school gun metal hard anodized Mavic rim with straight 14g spokes and brass nipples. It was on the Soma I bought at Bike Works on 10-9 day in 1999 with Adam Smith on the sales floor. Its matching Campy rear counterpart exploded one day near 4th & Pike when the sidewalls completely caved then SugarBear drove me up to BikeSmith on the clock with a blank check from WA Legal and Val swapped out the rear wheel in a jiffy for a generic freewheel qr 700c and I let him keep that Campy wheel gladly. But I'm still riding that 1981 Soma frame & fork and OE headset.

the blue one is a 32 hole high flange Suzue sealed bearing disco hub laced to an Open Pro with double butted spokes and alloy nipples. 11.4 years ago I built it and its matching rear wheel and along for the ride came the DT Swiss UBI Wheel Builder certification. for all intents and purposes including travel expenses and room & board it was the most expensive* wheelset I will ever build and ride into the ground but Ashland is beautiful in January. its sidewalls are dangerously thin and its matching rear counterpart retired long long ago with ultra concave sidewalls and crunchy bearings.  * all those fucking Mad Fiber wheelsets I "built" were more expensive but I never got near actually riding any of them

the green one is a non-descript 36 hole hub with a trashed freehub body full of gummed up pawls  laced to a forgettable rim. this wheel came off a friend's full suspension mountain bike time warp ca 1996 and came to rest in my basement.

to the untrained eye the passer by the neighbor two houses over they're a splash of color spray painted trailer park art zip tied to a chainlink fence just this side of a box-spring-mattress set discarded 10 months ago but if you take a closer look there's a story there and there and there.

injection port near left ventricle    add sriracha

every little ting
in moderation
except moderation
in absentia
integrity
structurally
cosmetically 
compressed
particle board
water logged
warped
wrapped
wrinkled
wood grain wall paper
adhesive
authenticity
off-gassing
seven years later

Hufnagel

to transplant to implant the lens of a real estate photographer into one eye so it's not just rose colored glasses half full fluffy happy happy schmaltzy shit      it's more like close the other eye and decide what to focus on and what to crop out of the frame

sunny days help too

Exit 168A reminds me of a lot of things

over and under    coming and going  

just passing through

Ichi Bike makes custom vintage bikes, BMX cruisers, muscle bikes, town bikes, etc. Located in Des Moines' Historic East Village, Ichi also offers repair service, bike parts, and accessories.

Alistair sent me this video many moons ago and I couldn't figure out how to embed it on this prehistoric site you're currently looking out. Then Kevin Durant sent me his messenger film yesterday and I some how jerry-rigged it to show up on here and so now I got Ichi Bike up here too. These pedals are rad.

thanks for nothing from the_hostager on Vimeo.

thanks Kevin Durant

three times around in the revolving door    then
out into a great green Astroturf rumpus room
a gold rotary phone rings hardwired    string

holds down a shiny red balloon   unmistakably
the one from the movie    kid voices speak French
while German subtitles appear on the wall    below

a picture of a painting of a cow jumping over the moon
bolted down securely against gravity in the lobby of Denny’s
Grand Slam breakfast dish runs away with the spoon

to one corner where three little Jerry bears rest
breaking briefly between songs and dancing around
correspondingly colorful musical plastic stacking chairs

on the turf two little kittens recently removed
from mother suckling the thumbs of two little mittens
grandmother knit strung together forever dangling   

the little toy house hinged-roof opens  to reveal
a young mouse anthropomorphically typecast
as if Stuart Little sounds like Michael J Fox

atop the coffee table a Hair Club for Men member’s
clogged comb and brush triangulate  with a
not too hot not too cold just right bowl of mush

everywhere stars fill the air with good night noises
no need to say goodnight         socks walk away
and it’s OK if nobody’s there at 7:00      except

that intimidating librarian looking old lady
saying in a near whispering hush  
this is NPR’s Morning Edition    I’m Bob Edwards

here's to Margaret Wise Brown's Good Night Moon again and again and again 

Hey Atom, just wanted to say that we think about you more than just once in a while and when I say we, I mean me, but I know I'm not the only one

 on your left

a slight variation on the recurring theme another 18 year check-in chance to ask yourself which bar stool were you sitting on in 1996? when pints were $2 served up in Imperial 20 ounce glasses there was no hard liquor and a tiny non-smoking section a rather limited menu featuring fish & chips with a free pool table downstairs and "darts" was darts and you could sit outside on the back porch and actually see the sky and get some sun when you were rocking Onza clipless pedals and purple barends with matching anodized quick-release skewers wearing XL Dinosaur Jr T-shirts and cutoff cargo shorts and 1221 East Pike was way off the beaten path on the fringes of Capitol Hill happy 18th birthday to the Elysian Brewing Company  ---  despite some poor management decisions and whack wacky things here and there there is no doubt Mr. Dick Cantwell  brews a fine beer and now you can find it in six packs in every corner store from here to Ashtabula  

the Elysian Empire is now up to 4 restaurants and one giant huge honking brewery in Georgetown

this photo was not taken on Vashon Island, but it was on an island

a wise woman recently reminded me 

"you must be the change you wish to see"

it's like butter

redkev photo yo

work a little RAGBRAI into your everyday world

it's the new normal it's the super hard to define fine fine line between asleep and awake between coffee and beer between getting over a cold and coming down with another one waxing & waning words silkscreened backwards so when you look over your shoulder in the mirror it all reads loud and clear it's the grey area behind blue eyes it's the continuum it's a dramatization a reenactment a real live living Joni Mitchell Circle Game reference to the concept of time progressing cyclically circular cycling playing along but not really buying it not ready to swallow it whole the whole time-is-linear thing and questioning what progress really is another day another revolution of the earth strung together with 364 spins just like it and we made another trip around the sun but I'm still sitting on the same cushion staring at the digital readout on the clock radio from the free pile spray painted black so you can't see what the buttons do I don't see what time it is I see numbers birthdates anniversaries patterns lines addresses 5:16 7:20 8:10 9:25 9:99 10:01 11:11 12:01 12:18 most digital clocks don't read 999 but they could it's so close to 9:59 and it was on my line so I dropped it what time is it what day is it where am I       time check      18 years just went by.  

Skunk P. Pilder

May 7, 1996 - April 21, 2014

Skunk was an unusual cat. Not very friendly. She didn't like most people. She loved to sleep under the covers and hide in closets. She loved donuts and tortilla chips and processed turkey lunch meat. Indoor all the way, she'd step outside  for a bite of grass and sneak back in right away to puke it up allover the carpet. Spitting distance from turning 18 years old, Skunk outlived her brother Brad by a few years. 

what were you doing    in 1996?

it's becoming apparent

it's becoming a parent 

what it looked like   this morning 

what it looked like   5 years ago

whatever it looks like to you

Happy Easter 

look   listen   feel

continuous trim continuum

give me your tired, your poor, your used PAUL brakes

photos remind me of other photos

everybody is 6 degrees from Craig 

but if you're reading this you're more like 1.5

pedal

petal

peddle

please take a moment to locate the context nearest you

Tom Chapel photo via Craig Etheridge or something like that

remember rolling up to the 4th Ave side of King at 4:27 and walking into the building completely calm knowing you had plenty of time to get through security and take the elevator to the clerk's office before you hit the judge's mailroom and there were already 8 or 10 legal messengers sitting outside smoking before they called their dispatcher?  remember when there were more legal messengers than jimmy johns? remember pay phones? remember parking meters?

Monday

Off the usual habit trails. On a cargo bike. On a ferry. On a Sunday into Monday. To an island. To wander in the sounds of silence and frogs and owls and work-related stuff. Enough said. Except riding a cargo bike on a bit of a jaunt made me for the first time seriously consider an electric assist rear wheel contraption. For real. Really.

Tuesday

Into a locked cage in the open-air parking garage of a downtown office building some people refer to as West 8th but in my mind it’s not even close to 8th Avenue West so I’d call it 2001 8th but in any case I never set foot in there as a messenger because it was constructed and completed but sat empty for the last year that I sat around emptying cans of beer as a messenger but I went in there Tuesday to wrench on bikes in sort of a cleanup mop-up tie-up loose ends on the tail end of a corporate team building exercise from some weeks back where software sales teams slapped together Torkers as fast as they could in expensive clothing back slapping big talking the talk sales people tend to do.

Visualize a front wheel with a quick-release skewer disassembled into its basic pieces. Toss in all the possible variables…  concave-convex forward-backward open-closed left-right up-down …and every possible permutation of wrong showed up fucked up. Things you would never think of were thought of and jammed into those front wheels. Then talk about brakes, brake pads, brake cables brake levers seat posts saddles and then go back and talk about corporate software sales teams on a convention weekend in a hotel conference room near a buffet lunch and open bar slapping together bikes as fast as possible.  

this bunch of Torkers is such a strange situation

it's not the time or the place to explain it all 

fill in the blanks    connect the dots

the story will be better that way

My peas are already planted in the garden this year poised to climb up their pea teepee just like last year. But maybe next year I’ll have one of these with a 36-hole hard anodized 27” rim laced to a solid axle hub with a rusty six-speed freewheel seized on up top of a 10-foot galvanized festivus pole strung to a rusty steel rim down below so the peas and beans can go crazy.

Chris Murray sent this photo today from the 01420, where the snow is melting, and I quote

Thanks Mark, Imagine my surprise when I come home and I have a new helmet and a new shirt in my mailbox. Awesome. Registration closes on April 1st. Come one come all.

Cheers
Chris

I didn't send him the helmet but I did send him the shirt as another symbolic representation symbolically representing the pilderwasser collective riding RAGBRAI since 2005 and I am impressed with the USPS and their speedy delivery delivering faster than Lance in the tour day france juiced up beyond belief wearing a USPS jersey in 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

I like the idea of coffee   more than coffee itself

pause for a moment to look around     and you may find yourself surrounded by people wearing pilderwasser hoodies

these are not pilderwasser hoodies

but Bike Works is pilderwasser approved

my right shoulder is still single-strap-lower than my left

The NFL free-agent marketplace, Major League Baseball opening day, Hockey, NCAA bracket-busting Cinderella stories, spring classics, Chris Horner’s hair line, swept back handlebars with a 25.4 clamp diameter shimmed out to 26ish with a beer can nesting in a Nitto stem, keeping cold drinks cold and warm hands warm sitting on a park bench or an old couch and much much more. 

3

3 years

3 years go by in the blink of an eye

here's a photo Matt Case took today of a pilderwasser T-shirt in situ somewhere not too far from the NAHBS in Charlotte, NC

57 Varieties time trial

Saturday April 5th mark your calendar

Sometimes I spot someone riding a bike with an ill-fitting helmet and rather nice clothes on looking a bit flustered and winded and rather uncomfortable and deduce that their car broke down and they grabbed their kid’s bike to get to work on time.

That person’s level of discomfort is exceeded by the discomfort I feel when I need to drive a car in the city. If I need to look for parking on the street then it’s a shit show. Back in the day when I was a teenager…I got a deduction on the driving test for parallel parking, and my skills haven’t improved since then.

Grocery shopping in a cargo bike is a treat not a chore and dropping the kid off at preschool with her bike and a big fat bag of cargo in a cargo bike brings a smile to my face, especially because it’s only 7 blocks away.

Today I watched a bunch of 2 or 3 or 4 year-olds ride bikes and trikes and scooters in counterclockwise circles round and round and round

Riding to work through the million dollar homes of the Mount Baker neighborhood, I’m reminded of Danny Noonan riding his bike to work at Bushwood at the beginning of Caddyshack and how everything is just a reference to something else or at least to some Soul Asylum song. It’s not the destination it’s the Journey. I like Journey like the Journey blaring out of Al Czervik's bag later in the movie.  But it was Kenny Loggins on the bike ride and Journey reminds me of Louden Swain jogging through the streets of Spokane at the beginning of Vision Quest.

Someday    it'll all make sense.

There is an almost-3-year-old I know that has a firm grasp on a 4mm allen wrench and a peripatetic grasp of the righty-tighty lefty-loosey concept. Now she wants to disassemble all the ikea furniture in sight.  

I would probably never use peripatetic in a sentence and say it to your face but         what were we talking about?

is that for here or to go?

...there is nothing I can say
that I haven’t thought before

http://www.pilderwasser.com/blog/310788/bonsai
http://www.pilderwasser.com/blog/117672/going_up

Regurgitation
Pretty persuasion

Static load       vs.
Dynamic load

Static load of shit
Dynamic load of shit

The engineering approach is a bit different
The marketing approach is a bit different

But either way
It’s a load of shit

28 days later or
7 years later

Tuesday I had a chance to visit several bike shops via bicycle which is something I haven’t done for a long long long time. If I had large chunks of free time I would not spend them at other bike shops after spending so much time in a little bike shop on the clock. This however was actually work related with a perfect window of perfect weather and printed word to get out I got out.      Word      Just like I used to deliver copies of kickstand to the shops that bought ad space.

Hand delivering cards and attractive countertop card holders to encourage people to donate their old bikes to Bike Works when they buy their shiny fancy new bikes this spring at fancy bike shops. The way the bike industry wants it to work. Each year or two you need to buy a new bike with the latest greatest shiny fancy stuff that’s lighter faster cooler better than the shiny fancy stuff you bought the year before. When you buy a new bike your current bike becomes your “old” bike and Bike Works can utilize your old bike donations in various ways.     Way  

I didn’t take any photographs, post anything on facebook, instagram, tweet, google map, gps balloon- o-rama, strava or any of that shit but I think it actually happened anyway and if yesterday was an alley cat I would have had the most fun without winning. 

Here’s my line:

Bike Works  stuffed my backpack with printed matter and old turkey sandwiches and then hit the road

20/20 Cycle
Interrupted a mechanic soaking up his last 16 minutes of sunshine before the shop opened while he puffed on some sort of vaporizer smoke thing
Montlake Bicycle Shop
Spoke to a very friendly mechanic about how I worked there 11 years ago and I could see him visualizing how he was in 3rd grade 11 years ago
Counterbalance Bicycles
Haven’t been there since they were actually at the base of the counterbalance. Haven’t been there there since it was Ti Cycles. Got a chance to speak to two really cool former bike messengers who happened to work there and also happen to have kids. Long long time kickstand advertiser (see photo above).
Performance
Delivered the goods in a timely professional manner
Gregg’s Greenlake
Delivered the goods in a timely professional manner
Recycled Cycles II
The little brother of the other. it was myfirst visit to this location. please direct your attention to the old radio collection. 

Free range Cycles
Kathleen said “haven’t seen you for 6 years” as soon as I walked in. Cool shop. Same as it ever was. Celebrating their 17th anniversary this week. long time kickstand advertiser featuring artwork by this guy

Wright Brothers
Holy Shit. Charles is Charles. He’s awesome. This place is a time warp. This shop can do things no bike shop can do because the space is his and he can make up the rules. Celebrating their 40th anniversary this year. 40 fucking years. You can smell the history in there. I got a wheel rebuilt there when Kathleen and Mytch still worked there and took my first bike repair class there.  Charles was always an enthusiastic and generous kickstand advertiser
Second Ascent
Delivered the goods and got out. advertised in kickstand before they were called Second Ascent but it's 233am and I cannot remember what they were called at their old Fremont location not to be confused with 2nd Base when it was up at 11th & Pine and CB worked there. (it's now 643am and I remembered some time around 3am that they were called Second Bounce and they did get confused with 2nd Base, same business model same smell but they both put ads in kickstand)
Recycled Cycles
Talked with Andy about old times and new, gentrification, progress, poor quality shoddy quick construction, urban growth boundaries, mass transit, UW and their place on the large research university spectrum, the beauty of a classic college campus, major college football, NCAA rule changes, paying the players, coach du jour, TV money, ESPN and so on and on... or was it all in my mind?   advertised in kickstand

Velo Bike Shop  
One year in their new location which will pay off huge as Amazon takes over downtown and the world. Had a chance to speak with Mike who has been a mechanic for 22+ years and with Velo for fucking ever. He is a Seattle icon. He is very cool.
Washington Legal Messengers
I wouldn’t call this a bike shop but it was on my line and I delivered a few Bike Works cards to Willy while Kohnman waited in the car out front. Talk about same as it ever was.
DANK bags  
Made a phone call to their West Edge retail location but it was just after normal business hours and happenstantially ran into one of the guys from their shop a bit later on First Avenue. these guys advertised in kickstand
Back Alley Bike Repair
Finally met The Ben Rainbow, although he says we met at Steve’s Birthday dance party. I can neither confirm nor deny those allegations.
Seattle E-Bike
In their new a-bit-further-south location this shop is top shelf and a great source of “old” bike owners looking for something to do with those old non-electric bikes sitting in the garage.

the bike that the Mayor of Seattle put up for his Super Bowl bet with the Mayor of Denver, will be up for grabs at the Bike Works auction

because it was there 

wore it today will wear it again when the mold dries

should be sponsored by SubPop

this shit is real 

mold thrives in Seattle 

looking forward to February no more

seeking out
geeking out

eeking out
leaking out

burning out

new neural pathways
within 7 to 10 working days

well before
the sprues wear off

the sprues
won't ever wear off

they're out there in their
orbits                                         orbiting

well beyond reasonable
contact patch contact

close caliper clearances
wheel of fortune whiskers whirring

Craig Etheridge sent me this photo which looks like an old grainy poor quality snap shot I peeled out of the glue and tape of a paste-up for kickstand so I could put it on a flat bed scanner the size of a microwave oven and digitize it to share with the world years later but I guess it's actually a rather recent digital photograph. Pictures of messengers always bring to mind other pictures of messengers stored in my photographic memory.

like a picture of a picture of a picture being taken

there must be 1.6 billion photos that include that chunk of cement

one thing leads to another which reminds me of another 

thanks for the photo Craig 

Wanna come down stairs and see my orange Carhartt hat collection?

six months went by in the blink of an eye

this kid is a chip off the old block

up hill both ways in the snow

I got a question from a questioner a comment from a commenter deep in the archives about this old photo. Asking what place this is what place is this? 

This is a place I would refer to as "Freeway Park" near 6th & Seneca. Several hundred cubic yards of cement in a souped-up freeway overpass called a park in the central business district of a medium sized city in North America.  And feel free to always stop a bike messenger on the street and ask them questions about architecture, fine dining, hotel accomodations or various tourist attractions. 

Raleigh Teton   circa 1985

From smack dab in the heart of the Reagan Years this monument in all its chromeness is on display (for sale) at Bike Works. The Teton is an entry level model from Raleigh’s Mountain Tour Series. The only other place you could spot one of these is in the Museum of Mountain Bike History. At 35+ pounds of 410 steel this 23 inch frame is truly monumental.

When I hefted it into the work stand with two hands, I sent what some people still refer to as a photo text of the HUGE head tube to Sally. I’m the sad sack sucker still flipping flip phone fucker. I’m no twitterer but if I was I’d be tweeting #hugeheadtube.

Slack angles, giant clearances, very cool fork, chrome-o-rama. If this bike was a bit smaller I would build it up as a single speed cruiser and ride it on the beach from Grayland to Westport with a beer in hand and one in the bottle cage. 

In 1985 I sold my BMX bike to a young kid and his dad through a classified ad in an actual print newspaper called the Spokesman Review. I had a Schwinn coaster brake cruiser but I was thinking more about taking driver's ed than I was riding bikes and I don't remember hearing the term Mountain Bike until I voted for Dukakis.  

Bikes like this roll through every so often because Bike Works is like a garage sale, thrift store, bike swap every day. So the annual Cascade Bike Club sponsored bike swap doesn't look so attractive. But it is a good place to run into old bike messengers. 

Jason Hultman photo

clear

crisp

cold

extremely drinkable

I wish I had those things on my bike Thursday

HPO photo

Remember when Dave Krieg went to Milton College? Remember when Steve Largent wasn’t a politician? Remember when Chuck Knox won the AFC West and almost made it to the Super Bowl? (my mom bought me a T-shirt) Remember when Bo Jackson ran over Brian Bosworth? Remember those Wizard of Boz posters?  Remember when Cortez Kennedy got drafted out of Miami in the first round? Remember when the Seahawks  drafted Rick Mirer missing on Drew Bledsoe? Remember when they hired controlled demolition experts and imploded the King Dome   bringing it down in its own footprint? Remember when Hasselbeck said “we want the ball and we’re gonna score”???  Remember when you learned the difference between a field goal and a kickoff?

three-nine photo

poached this photo from CETMA because it smells like a silk screen and that smells good to me as I know a little bit about a little silk screen and I would proudly wear a T-shirt screened with this image while riding my CETMA cargo bike because it's the real deal it's steel and I know the guy that makes them and he delivered my bike in person to my house and then he and his wife went out for a beer with me and my family for real really.

walking the walk

means a lot to me

three-nine photo of Jason demonstrating tackling technique right there in the lobby of 1191

thirty-eight minutes into the Chinese New Year the water snake is so last year when I have nothing to say my lips are sealed    say something once why say it again and again and again for two weeks leading up to the super bowl are you fucking kidding me? 

Had a few paragraphs in mind   a little parable to sum it up succinctly sew it up neatly in a cute little package literally 333 words or less describing the arcs and trends and vectors with lots of arrows implied implicitly and explicitly overt all over all about riding a bike like letting one man’s story serve as an example posted up poster child style but it turns out that would be the outline for a book I’m writing if then or when I write a book and there are not enough hours in the day today to write.

You’re not one minute late for that one
You’re nine minutes early for the next one
You’re both      but we don’t need more touchy feely rose colored glasses half full in how you look at it group hug horseshit   you missed it by that much and now you can wait for the next one.

Which reminds me of sucking on a gummy bear for a bit then sticking it on the head tube where it may or may not have staid for 10 or more working days.

kind of a big deal

my right shoulder is still lower than my left

In about six months the pilderwasser collective will be riding their 10th consecutive great bike ride across Iowa. The collective is a solid core of regulars as well as a rotating cast of supporting actors. However, one member of the collective, the one in the photo,  has ridden each and every RAGBRAI since 2005 and in the midst of a polar vortex, he’s warming up for his tenth one as we speak wearing this one of a kind barely used long sleeve jersey that metaphorically symbolizes those ten years. While each year is unique and special, in retrospect multiple RAGBRAIs can start to blend together, or look the same to the untrained eye, memories blur and years overlap especially when routes cross over and overnight towns pop up again and those pass-through towns look much like they did seven years ago when you last passed through and Bachman Turner Overdrive is playing in Ames just like they did that one year before.    

you ain’t seen nothin yet

it’s
the old

irresistible force   
immovable object

paradox
or something like that

those mold spores
they’re always there

looking for their
affordable housing

What’s left of Mad Fiber is up for auction   Alistair sent me links to the auctioneers from Florida who have come in to sweep up the dust bunnies in the old Essential Bakery space that once held a revolutionary carbon fiber wheel manufacturing company that sprouted in the fertile Puget Sound region allowing for a unique cross pollination from the aerospace industry, the software world and a bit of cycling too…and so on and so forth. The massive overbuilt one-0f-kind tools do not come with instruction manuals because nobody ever made wheels like that before. Many of those tools are third, fourth, or fifth iterations that evolved from thousands of hours of trial and error and experimentation and they needed a lot of tweaking and gentle nudges here and there.  Maybe they’d make great lawn ornaments or the most expensive hunks of scrap metal ever. But beware of the bad juju. 

The pictures of the empty shop with stuff scattered around willy-nilly make me queasy because I spent a lot of hours hunching over those work benches sorting spokes, huffing acetone and grinding off excess aerospace industry adhesives with a dremel tool.

Alistair also helped to remind me that the bright spot -- before, during and long after this Mad Fiber thing fades away--  has been and will continue to be Ric

Sunday Sunday Sunday      January 19, 2014

The Bike Works Warehouse Sale  11am - 4pm

The NFC Championship Game   3:30pm

you can do both

I get to work on a lot of bikes but I don't usually get to see who they end up with. I just have to visualize a potential utility cyclist or commuter or weekend warrior. But this little project is for a kid I know that has a birthday coming up in February,  so it's getting a bit more attention. The derailleur hanger was bent a full bubble off plumb, which is fairly common, as you can imagine, on used 24 inchers.  It's also getting new cables & housing, new brake pads, new chain. new levers, nearly new grips and a gently used 7-speed grip shift. The new 24 x 2.6 tires make the 11 inch frame look wicked cool. This bike will soon be shredding the trails and beaches of Whatcom County. 

Compartmentalization is an unconscious psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person's having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, etc. within themselves.

Compartmentalization allows these conflicting ideas to co-exist by inhibiting direct or explicit acknowledgement and interaction between separate compartmentalized self states

###

There's a time and a place for cute little cubby holes and cubicles. I prefer to take a holistic approach to my compartmentalization. 

For the most part it's same on the weekend as the rest of the days but the timing on the traffic lights is different. 

After further review the play stands continuing to roll on like a giant ball of inertia or in a half-full-half-empty body-in-motion-body-at-rest flippy floppy in how you look at it flip flop continuing to stay the same like a giant blob of inertia. 

An unnamed benefactor* has convinced me to keep it rolling and or keep it the same by offering at the platinum level as in sustaining member as in cornerstone keystone founding father fuckin A+    won’t have to think about it again until January of 2015 but it’s interesting to hear options and variations on the theme from others out there who aren’t still flipping the flip phone of websites.

It’s some kind of cockeyed tripod triumvirate trifold wallet of a balancing act combo of Brazilian martial arts those stools they use to milk cows and a non-stop introspective feedback loop trying not to completely lose sight of the here and now by putting all the eggs in one basket of what could be while maintaining respect for what once was.

Then finally when you go back outside and shove your asspocket u-lock in your asspocket you forget your trifold wallet is still in there because you needed to show your ID to the rent-a-cop at the front desk which isn't really a problem but it could be at the next stop when you yank your lock out and your wallet goes with it and you're wearing so many layers you don't even notice it fall to the ground. 

January 13, 2014   post script

Thanks to the pilderwasser collective*

for supporting this site through the calendar year of 2014

there's no i in team, but there's an i in collective

I like this old picture and a lot of the other old pictures on here too and that's the reason this thing hasn't completely gone to seed, expired and returned to earth to be reabsorbed    or maybe it's only because those sonsabitches in the billing department have my credit card on file.  It feels like it's hanging on    not for the promise of the future    but   out of respect for the past or at least until I can save it all on an external hard drive and then drop it in a toilet someplace. In the mean time please poach all your favorite photos and make photo mugs for your mother in law with them because I believe this site will be going down in 2014.

word

5 or 10 or 15 years ago   did you ever think

this guy would be working at ABC
or that other guy would be on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico
and all those guys would go to law school
when I say guys I mean Stacie and Molly too
or that 22 would still be a messenger
and all those other guys would move to Portland
and you’d get married divorced & married again
and know so much about diapers and catch yourself
repeating nonsense-nursery-rhyme-like phrases while
crawling around eating raisins off the carpet at 3am

two zero one four
twenty fourteen
2014

I resolve to stay
the course complete
the cycle of antibiotics

hawking one goober at a time
returning to the original owner
one metric ton of lung butter

I'm having trouble breathing in...