I was kicking rocks in Spokane in the endless summer before 7th grade when Squeeze released “Tempted”. A few weeks later MTV started and that’s probably where I first heard it. Then local top-40 radio came around with some airplay. I appreciated it back then. But in the ensuing 45 years my appreciation for this song has grown.
"upgrade your fender game with this set of sturdy and beautiful aluminum fenders"
November 8, 2026
When I got a Lemond Poprad this summer I had visions of full fenders for it and I got my hands on some sweet Planet Bike 6061 fenders. A country mile wide at 55mm. They were cheap of course, pulled from a pile in the Bike Works Warehouse. But their MSRP was $125.
When I swapped out the Poprad's carbon fork for a burly Surly, the front fender was no problem at all. Plenty of room and a variety of bolts and eyelets. However the rear triangle on the Poprad is nowhere near fender-friendly, especially for these big boys. So the fenders sat on the floor for a few months, until the Rock Hopper said, “what about me?”
I wasn’t planning to fender this stodgy 30lb cadillac cruiser single speed. But I’m glad I did. And here we are now, easy like Sunday Morning.
Like Dr 37 Mike says, it’s a lot easier to put your fenders back on, if you never take them off.
In this Rock Hopper’s 35 years of life, I am confident this is the first set of fenders it’s ever had. I think these are the 700c models. Check out how far they wrap around the chunky 26” tires.
I’ve had countless pairs of plastic fenders over the years. But I believe this is my first set of metal ones. The quality is tangible, visible as well as audible. Full-fender bikes now take up 66.666% of my stable.
On my last visit to PDX I earned the nickname Toto from a bartender at Dockside. A little while later 22 Heather made me this Toto artwork. And yesterday Steve Young was passing through town and gave me this Dockside coozie.
Visualize the working title of my latest piece of nonfiction:
Discover Your Dockside
sometimes you wanna go
where everybody knows you’re
Toto
A roundabout nonsensical self-help book you will never finish and end up shelved next to all the other paperweights in the little free library.
Kickstand, you got loose and I threw up Yeah, kickstand, you got the juice to fill my cup My mother says that it's alright My mother says that's the only life
I learned to ride on my sister's red Midget Sting-Ray. Then I got my very own sky blue Sting-Ray exactly like this one. I had a speedometer too. But I did not have the tassles sprouting from the grips.
that official Schwinn blue glitter grip tap handle is an ode to my first bicycle.
What if you walked by this air compressor two or four or six times a day. Every day. Monday through Friday. Until one day, in said hallway, you were holding in your hand, a one-of-a-kind pee-dub postcard for Dr 37 Mike and it all came together. ONEWAY or another.
So you paused and took a picture to make it last longer.
A few months ago I went to visit Cory & Clea down in Rip City and Clea gifted me a stack of books that included How The Dead Dream by Lydia Millet.
Recently I’ve been kicking around several books here & there. But last week this one got me started to finish. Reading it on train rides north, train rides south, even coffee breaks in the Hans Rosling Center. I actually read the entire book.
Each morning I hop off the train and I hop on my bike at 43rd & Brooklyn. Each afternoon I hop off my bike and I hop on the train.
What does this book have to do with the IHOP that used to live at 4301 Brooklyn Ave NE? What does anything have to do with anything? I don’t like to share too much about books when I recommend them. I’ll let you decide for yourself.
After you read this novel, we can talk more about the old U-district IHOP. It was constructed right about the same time as the Safeco Building in 1973, nestled in near the loading dock of that 22 story eyesore of a zoning violation. It’s the tallest building in Seattle outside of downtown. It’s now owned by UW and they call it “the tower”. I still like to think of it as “the Safeco Building” with a U-dub sticker pasted on top, because that’s what it is. I like to think of 1001 4th as “Safeco Plaza” - which became their HQ in 2007 when all those well-dressed office workers moved out of the U-district.
In the early 90s I ate at that IHOP a couple times before or after movies at the Neptune. (I also visited Big Time at least once in 1991. But not again until this electric ass bathtub gig 27 years later)
That old IHOP has been gone for 20 years as construction began way back when on the light rail station I visit twice a day these days. I hop on my bike then I hop on a train then I hop on my bike then I hop on a train then I hop on my bike…
Thursday I pulled a black sweatshirt from a free pile in the President’s office. No joke. I don’t need another sweatshirt. But it needed me to silkscreen some new features to distinguish it from the hundreds of others just like it wandering around campus. Now, nobody has one of these, except me. I plan to wear it to work and show the President's receptionist my "new" sweatshirt.
While the silkscreens were slathered up, I pulled off a few postcards too. Then while I was standing around in the garage watching the paint dry, I swapped out the shifters on the Poprad. I had been using a sweet pair of Microshift barend shifters, 8-speed frictioned out for my 7-speed cassette. They worked but not very well in the context of the downtube. It wasn't all wrong. It just wasn't quite right.
Out of the saddle grinding uphill the chain would sometimes jump a cog or two. Frustrating, embarrassing, and annoying. So I dug around in the small parts bins and found several combinations of mismatched downtube shifters. I really wanted to use those black Suntour shifters with their satisfying clicky-clicky ratchety-feely friction. But they won’t work when they're removed from their downtube clamp.
I was laughing to myself about times in my life when I’d never go out in public with mismatched shifters, realizing that perhaps I’ve grown out of that bike part phase. But then I found a matching pair of old Shimano shifters shifting as downtube shifters were meant to shift, on the downtube. I’ve had them for years and years and there was no reason for me to buy those Microshift beauties at Recycled Cycles. Now they look like store-credit to me.
39 always says, shifting is overrated. I agree. Grant Peterson says the same thing, in so many more words.
Driveway entrance to the Gould Hall loading dock stage right ground score. But not something I’m pocketing to take home and saute in butter with onions and garlic. Take only photos. Leave only empty beer cans. Three hours later the clouds lifted. Out came the sun. Add sidewalk chalk and call it In Situ Resource Utilization, optimized. ISRU kidding me, call it art. Take a picture, it’ll last longer. Sambas added to show scale. Here you are. You are here.
As an electric-ass bathtub mailman I deliver mail on campus at a large state university you might know of. An academic research powerhouse in multiple fields. However there is a lack of common sense in many day-to-day endeavors.
The day after election day I often pick up ballots that people placed in the outgoing mail tub for pickup. I shake my head, knowing their votes don’t count.
Why are you waiting until late in the day on election day to place your ballot in an outgoing mail tub that may or may not get picked up by some electric-ass mailman? Are you fucking kidding me? You have a PhD?
Please do not wait until Election Day, Tuesday November 3. Vote early and place your ballot in a secure drop box. Do not blame the election results on the US Postal Service.
