Some thoughts on my Cat

Wink256:

eats obsessively

will harangue us repeatedly when we try to put him on a diet

eats too fast and vomits immediately, often on something we like

is too lazy to walk around to the door that is open and will paw at the door that is closed

is developing a habit of pooping NEAR the litterbox, but not in it.

Is still the only cat that will go on a ride with me.




Thanks little buddy.
previous wink256 bicycle adventures here

Snakes in the House

We had a bumper crop of snakes in the yard this year.



Apparently snakes don't have ears, as the well belled cats have been picking them off easily. As many as three or four a day. For the most part they are playing catch and release, they catchem and play with them. I yell at the cats and I release em.





I assume these are Garter Snakes of the New Mexican variety, sounds like a single female can have up to 50 live offspring, so maybe we had one particularly fertile couple in the yard.



For the most part, the snakes have been released with minor damage, but two have been killed. This big one early in the season:



and this one that got smashed in the door when it was hiding under the flashing:



I think I have rescued snakes 12 times so far this year, I think there were some repeat customers, but for the most part they are unique.



I assume that these snakes have been keeping down the grasshoppers in the yard and may grow to eat gophers, so I would love to keep them around. Anyone need some guaranteed proven snake catching cats?

More Minneapolis Stuff

In addition to working and visiting the LFOAB I had some other fun

Twinkies lose a close one to the A's at the Metrodome

Man is the metrodome terrible. Even half full it is deafening and the astroturf has mange. But it was still fun to go to a game and spend $6.50 on a watery beer.

Got to see A's wunderkid Brad Zeigler pitch. I had no idea he was a submariner, almost as fun as a knuckler:




I also visited Hurl at CarsRCoffins a few times. Hurl and I go way back to the old days of racing sting rays over top of fallen drunkards at bike events. His bike/coffee shop is really nice and filled with old bikes and good coffees and cookies.

Schwinn and Bianchi Goodness

and yes, I bought a carsrcoffins onesie.


Me and Hurl


Good stuff Hurl. Next time maybe we ride.

Also, lost in the last post was that I met Bob Brown finally. I think I have been in Email contact with him for about 10 years. It was great to meet him and ride with him. Too keep with the pointy photo theme:


image stolen from LFOAB, click for source

In addition to having geeky engineering discussions with Bob, I got a chance to check out his excellent handiwork on Scott and Amy's bikes as well as one of his sns coupled bike at One-on-one. He also told me the secret to the copper coated bike that he made for Amy. Its people! Its coated with People!

Copper and People coated BB frame:


It is hard to tell from the photo above, but Bob looks like freakily like my buddy Mark Bishop. I think they are related. Which one of you is the orphink?

Finally, I got a chance to swing by the One On One bike studio coffee bar on my way out of town. It is excellent. The bike shop/coffee shop is a hard trick to pull off, but they seem to have two gooduns in minneapolis.

One-on-one shop front with custom racks

Next to Sex World a block from the Mississippi.

Big Dummy-Bison-Elk

I think I saw at least 6 big dummys in MN. They are everywhere. You cannot escape them. One on one had perhaps the best taxidermied head collection I have ever seen in a bike shop. The studio was clean and displayed bikes with plenty of room to browse and drool. But then. There was the basement.

The basement starts organized

Used bikes galore stacked up and well labeled.

Then descends into bicycle madness


The further you go in the basement the more chaos reigns. I think I saw a CHUD lurking in a corner behind a rusted out Shelby Flyer. There was so much good stuff down there that I was unable to process, cooler heads would have grabbed the huge box of internally geared hubs and ran for the Canadian border, but my circuits fried pretty quick when I got in the basement.

All in all, Good show minneapolis, I hope I will be back.

A Visit with the Large Feller!

I was up there in Minneapolis for some work and got a chance to do some riding and visiting with the LFOAB©™® and his family. Good stuff!

Bob Brown, Scott aka LFOAB, Amy/Chloe, me over the missisippi


Scott and I are clearly operating on more or less the same wavelength. I blame too much time spent in New Jersey. After knowing him through the e-net for a couple of years and speaking to him once or twice a few years ago, it was great to actually meet him face to face. He is a good fucker. He also has a great story about the redemptive power of bicycling and vegetable based eating, if you are not, for some reason, aware of his dealy-o check out this article in the Star Tribune. Not to belabor things, but he looks great, is at something like 1 Tarik in weight and it is difficult to tell that he has not been a hard core urban cyclist for his whole life. Also he is a huge local bike celebrity and has at least one, possibly more creepy people who sort of stalk him! Much respect.


After my work duties were done, I rolled from bloomington strip mall hell uptown to the minnihaha greenway through some fine urban singletrack and past the hordes of post work cyclepath olympians to a nice bench where Scott met me on his El Dumbino met me and rode with me back up to his house.

I live for urban singletrack



There I met his wife Amy and daughter Chloe and The Most Productive Man Alive©™®: Bob Brown. We had some beers and delicious algae water from the fine minneapolis tap and then went for a ride about town. Hitting key sites such as the mighty river, the new stadium construction site and the Gehry Museum at the UM thingy.

Scott and Chloe on el Dumbino, BBBB patrolling the rear of the peleton


After riding, it was time for eating. We had some sort of delicious chickpea derived dinner that Scott and Amy whipped consisting of two courses, pickled chick peas and the hummus wrap of the gods. It was good. I got covered in glowing yellow mustard was well sated. Following was good conversation ranging from corrosion science to blogging to evil to frame building to bees, catheters and spiders. At some point I was fading fast and it was well after eleven and then Scott let me in on a little secret: He and his family are pretty much vampires, due to Amy's shifts they don't sleep at night to maximize family time, and the meal we just had was lunch for them. Wooooo! With this knowledge Bob and I had to beg off and head for home. Before I left I was generously gifted some new tires for my friday, some I Piss Excellence©™®stickers and a few BBKenwood waterbottles. Thanks Pals!

Bob graciously rode with me to back to where I could find my way home and I headed off on the Minnihaha Parkway home. After nearly getting killed by a few stealth cyclists and at least 6 different bunnies with murderous intent and getting nearly abducted by UFO's, I got back to the hotel and slept like the dead. Something like 35 miles on the day.

After working the next day, I rode uptown to say hi to old buddy Hurl at his CarsRCoffins Coffee Bar Cycle garage. He was busy working and getting ready for single speed worlds so we caught up a bit and he pointed me out front where the whole Cutshall family was sitting having some how stalked me in advanced. Well played. So I got me a spinach wrap and sat down for more conversions. While we talked, we watched Chloe, just recently riding without training wheels derby this guy into the ground. A short while later we rolled out for a stately family ride out to one of the lakes for some beach sitting conversing and rock hucking.


Derby Queen Chloe and a custom Snap Deck on a Big Dummy



Alas all good thing must end and I had to get some sleep before working the next day so I headed off into the sunset leaving the famiglia LFOAB behind. It was great meeting all you minnehapasotanhahas.



It was a pretty quick business trip,monday-thursday, but I did manage to get in three rides on the fixie friday, see the Cuttshall clan twice, meet up with Hurl again after many years, visit the CRC cyclegarage coffee shop, meet Bob Brown and sneak in a trip to One on One Bike studio on the long long way to the airport. Also: twins game in possibly one of the worst places to watch a baseball game ever. Minneapolis, good place in the summer at least. Did not see Prince. Perhaps more later. I am still pooped.
All the minneapolis pics
LFOAB's take on the evening

PS to Scott, check the new masthead tag line , thats "blog gold" with a "©™®"

Minnihaha Midnight Ride

with tires on the neck

SmartBike DC launches?

Spotted this randomly on flickr:

click image for source

I think that means smart bike has launched in DC. Any confirmation? Dad? Anyone?

I love the superchopper look on these. Looks like they have the exact same racks and interface as Dijons velodi program. Also the handlebars/rack/light combination is pretty styling...

Update 8/22/08
Commenters say they have launched. Go DC! I hope there are a million return places!
Also a commenter pointed out that these are the same bikes that stockholm has (possibly one of the spanish cities too). It turns out I already blogged these bikes:
here with this photo that I stole from my pal LauritaLaurita:


click for source

Best cyclist ever

Jason McCartney, Team CSC Saxobank pro, two time olympian, all around bike lover, is featured in todays NYT on a nice short piece on cycling in Beijing. Check the slide show, this is exactly what I did when I was in China. Ride around on a city bike gawking at other cyclists and taking pictures. There is also a fabulously geeky pic of him and canadian olympian michael barry riding around together on their rented city bikes in beijing. The audio slide show is great. Note the ropey calves, note the low seats, great stuff.


click for source.

New York Times Article on Jason McCartney riding in Beijing

Previous blog post on Pro cyclist grocery bikes featuring McCartney, Michael Barry and Dede Demet Barry.

Moscaline Legui Photo Call

From my pal Marc Pfister on 3/2/2007:

(click for source)

From me, 7/17/2008:


Anyone else? Please email me a photo or a link and I will post it. That goes for future trips too. Lots of the coolest bikes in Paris seemed to live on the street, some might be abandoned, some might be daily riders. So lets study this one. It has been on the same tree for at least 16 months, probably since time began.

The bike, a nice legui, the place, somewhere pretty damn obvious in Les Halles near the metro. You all are a worldly bunch, go forth and photo!

I am a wheel building master

Lose the rim and you can save some serious weight.