Better than artistic cycling

You may have seen this linked on every bike blog on the internet, right?





But did you notice in the last 10 seconds they set out a net? You know what that is for?
Well it is for this:




Yeah! Cycleball! Cycleball! Much better soundtrack than artistic cycling!
Dig them crazy bikes. I wanted to link to an even better cycleball video showing two stars of the sport with awesomely bad video jump editing and a hilariously good thrash metal soundtrack, but can't find it... Anyone?

Hail Damaged Saddle

I ran into my buddy Zach last friday and he showed me his excellent hail damaged saddle:


Damaged in the great Los Alamos Hail Storm of Ought Nine.

In other hail news, we got the insurance settlement for the house and it is good. We have some contractors lined up and just hope to get the work done before winter. We shall see. No word if Zach got a new saddle covered under his insurance company.

Road finds of the Day

On sunday's grocery/hardware store ride, I found the following:


I have seen lots of locks on the side of the road, especially near the pool. This is the first one I bothered to pick up because it had a key in it. Clearly it had been run over a few times, but it works.

The knife I found mere steps from this previous find. Cheapo german steel knife, blade is pristine, but for tar on the tip, maybe it fell point down. Seems odd. But good for a tool box or travel mess kit or something.

Shake it Merckxy

Yeah. Shaky shake. Shakey!

via

Spherical approximation in effect

Well almost. I think there is a story behind this thing, I have seen it around and about town, I think I see environmental monitoring station behind it. Perhaps I have said too much. I picture towing this behind the big dummy when I go all pro and stuff next year. Hang the race bikes and skiis on the back and travel colorado and NM in search of easy cash winnings. Oh yeah. Watch out Neil Armstrong, I am coming for you!

The trailer looks to be functional cousin of the VW Ball

other trailers on moscaline

Video linkage

I almost linked to this when it came out earlier in the year, but I decided not to as EVERYONE linked to it. But I just got an email from a pal asking if I had seen it. Yep I said, I sure have, but boy do I not ever get tired of watching this. And on the off chance you, dear reader, have never heard of Danny MacAskill, you are in for a treat.

I have had conversations with many non cyclist people who find out I ride bikes incessantly that go as follows:
oh you bike, eh? Have you seen that video of that guy in the city jumping things?
I have. But it is not fair saying we both ride a bicycle, he and I don't occupy the same universe. I can't even process some of the stuff he does in the video.

Watch and enjoy if you haven't before, or watch again and again:




For the non-cyclists who read the blog here is what I can do that is shown in the video:
1. Stand in place with my bike between me
2: Ride forward in a straight line.
That is about it, I can fall too, but not like he can, not without dying. Thankfully I am old enough to be satisfied with replicating only those skilz.

I bet you thought I was going to link to performance, no?

Why?

Around 10 pm as we were wressling the sleepless infink to bed, Elena suddenly remembers that she saw a bike encased in a curbside brushpile around the corner. Hot damn I says! I put the baby to bed and saddle up the big dummy with visions of that special Schwinn Typhoon or Raleigh sports curbfind, or, maybe, even better!

It is pouring rain, east coast style nightime soaking rain that we don't see much of. I head up the block, round the corner, up the block and spy yellow bicycle atop a stinky brushpile, clearly headed to the dump tomorrow. My heart quickens, I scan the bike. Stamped dropouts, stem shifters, crap, sears brand free spirit. I scan the bike again, pop it off the brushpile onto the dummy and ride on home. To quote my dad "Why, son, why?".

why, son, why?


Well let me tell you why pops!

Worth it for the reflectors alone, but check them crazy pinstripe fenders


Super deco rear rack and faboo rear reflector to compliment the front


Unbelievably craptastic chainrings and chain guard that might have actually had some design thought applied...



Excellent graphic design AND cheap repair inspiration, bonus points for using strapping tape on a bicycle, but not as a replacement for rim tape




Looking for unique color combos for your next custom frame? How bout yellow, offwhite with adobe accents, thank you 1978!,


So aside from excellent graphics and color inspiration I will most likely strip the frame and keep: The fenders and rear rack. The servicable diacomp brakes and touring levers. The pretty fresh looking rubber block pedals. The one piece crank and possibly save the small chainring for replacing the ridiculously large chainrings on stock schwinn one speeds. I will probably save the bars and stems for replacements for other similarly crappy yet functioning bikes. Seat post could be useful if free of corrosion for replacement. Saddle clamp hardware. I will definitely save all the reflectors for reflector festoonage upon winter bikes. If any of the plastic clips holding the cables to the braze-on-free frame are still functional I will keep them. I will keep any bolts that come out easily. They are not metric, but they might be useful for working on other similar bikes. This includes hub bolts washers and locknuts. This one is a shitty 10 speed, so derailers and shifters are probably complete junk, but I will look em over.

All of the above things are probably worth checking out on any bike. But if you find a sears/free spirit/montgomery ward type bike from this era please check these additional things before you pass it up:
Rear hub, often a SA three speed. Keep it. Occasionally bendix single speed or possibly kick back coaster brake. Keeeep!!!!
Chain guard? Keep it!!!! Hard to find good chainguards these days.
Metal clips holding cables on? Keep for use on better bikes with skinny tubes and no braze ons.
Any internal hub shifting stuff should be kept, cables housing and shifters!
Check to see if the saddle is remotely useable. If it is, and if it has saddlebag loops, it might be worth for putting on your rain/winter bike that you might need a saddlebag for.

The frames, rims, spokes are probably junk and will make their way to the transfer station as it was headed. I would probably never spend any money at a thrift store or garage sale on a bike like this, but if it is free and you can spend an hour or two stripping it down to the useful and not so, it is worth it. If it had a bendix two speed coaster hub, or a pre 1970 sturmey hub, I might actually pay a bit for it, but otherwise, just a fun project. Many of these bikes were 590 wheels, but those fenders will work for 650b and 559xskinny and might be shoehorned onto a 700c beater bike if you don't mind bending metal, so it is usually worth keeping a couple sets, just in case. That is, if you are me, and you have a bike dungeon or the like and you have a predilection for picking up half complete project bikes.

I would not really recommend keeping the frames on these for anything as the welding/brazing is crappy, and some of them look to be galvanized steel under the paint which means they are somewhat to very toxic for future torchwork, so careful.

Other donorcycles I have now stripped

Thats two other searsish bikes, one with a SA hub, and a crappy peugot, bad frame, lots of useful french threaded bits for replacing parts on a older more desirable peugot! Go packrat me.

Words falling out of favor.

Riding a bit, baby wrangling a bit, insurance and contractor wrangling a bit, working a bunch. Too pooped for words. I assume short updates with pictures is better than no updates at all?

This view used to be on my "the long way in" morning commute, that slowly became the default way in.


This is on a fairly regular after work short loop (for the where do you ride pool), quemazon-pipeline-home



I am not sure I will ever get used to seeing this first thing in the morning:


Seen at the Los Alamos Rodeo Parade:

Not pro the subject matter, just the best picture taken, the rest here