So. Fascinating. He makes it look so easy. Someday I would like to be this good at at least one thing.

Rusty Bones

This blog has been dead for a reason. I put my fixie up last fall and haven't ridden it since. Word. I am so out of shape I can barely make a short ride. :/ But - I got the motobacane down and did the min: air in tires, lube on chain, new lights on bike (including some fun motion activated blinkie lights on the valve stems), moved the seat forward, zip tied the brake cable up, tightened the crank bolts...pretty much all the little things that would make me at least ready to jump on it again.

I also finally got the PCS-9 Park Tool repair stand I've been wanting for a long while. It's way bigger than I expected. The screws were kind of a beast to screw in on the bottom legs - not sure what was up with that - and because the legs fold down, it's not quite as stable as I thought, but good enough. Maybe I'm not doing something right. Hopefully one of my smarty pants bike friends will tell me at some point if I can't figure it out myself. I think the stand will help as I'm trying to figure out the bike stuff. I got a Park Tool manual off of the interwebs too. So, we'll see how much damage I can do this summer.

My orange and mustard steel road bike from the dinosaur age is in a sad state of disrepair. Not that it was in particularly good shape when I got it, but I'm going to mess around with that this summer to see if I can get it ridable again.





And when I'm bored with that, I still have an old internal 3-speed, a super heavy trick bike that one of my peeps gave me, and the old Nishiki frame to mess around with.



I'm glad the snow is gone. I missed this.

Lazy Bones Bike Brigade

You know who you are. You love to bike, or maybe just like to bike, but want to bike more. You love the hardcore riding that you see your friends do on their pimped out fixies, but that's not really how you roll. Or you hate the elitist vibe of the bikier-than-thous. Maybe you would love to be a bikier-than-thou hardcore hipster, but your bike is old and only goes turtle speed, so you are stuck eating their dust and riding lonely. Or maybe you just like to be able to take in the scenery and chat with the person next to you while riding instead of barreling ahead at lightning speed, focused only on avoiding potholes and bracing yourself for june bug impacts at high speeds. Whatever your reason, you're one of many looking for a more relaxed bike ride in this evolving Eau Claire bike scene. Dude...relax. Embrace the Slow Bicycle Movement. Ride Lazy Bones style. Word.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=129487558655&ref=mf

Image on treehugger.com

p.s. David Smuhl is way better at hyperlinks than I am.

Life Beyond the Mom Van

I've been pretty horrible about biking lately. Not gonna' lie. Instead of beating myself up about it, I just stood back and tried to figure out why.

1) No on site laundry. My lease is up soon, so that will be at the top of the list of things I'm looking for.

2) Shitty bike. I love my bike, don't get me wrong, but it was never meant to be my life partner. She was a lust affair, plain and simple. But she is all wrong for me. We don't fit that well. She causes me pain. Makes me numb. She has no intention of changing and neither do I. The amount of work it would take to make us manageable is not worth the gains. So, we had a talk. We know it's a lame duck situation. I've decided to get to work on the Nishiki. The Nishiki knows about Jez. It's all out in the open. We all just hope for a smooth transition.

3) Speaking of The Nishiki, I went to Greasy Fixins this last Saturday and with a little help from my friends stripped her down and donated the parts. The Nishiki's handlebars found a loving new home and her other bits are resting peacefully in donation bins. She will hopefully be powder coated within the month. Then it's all new parts from there. Can't wait.

4) I'd also like to make a shout out to Annie Gillberg who has been the little angel on my right shoulder reminding me to ride my bike when I get wimpy. Yesterday morning I was planning out my to-do list and was thinking about a bill I had to pay on the outskirts of town. My first reaction was that I could take the Mom Van and deliver it later in the day. Then I remembered how many times I've been lazy lately and how Annie is always good for a "You should ride your bike." So I did.

At 4:30am I stopped what I was doing and wrapped myself in my hoodie. I threw my bag over my shoulder, unlocked my bike, and headed out. Everything was so quiet and wonderful. It reminds me of a quote from Home at the End of the World...

When the place is all dark, when you and Clare have gone to sleep, and I'm awake, it's like being alive and being dead at the same time, y'know? It's this sorta halfway thing, where people who are alive are dreaming and people who are dead are... where they are. And I'm here... in the dark and the quiet.

It also reminded me of how much anxiety I've had about finding a few new friends or a social circle that feels like home. It's been my focus, when really the more significant thing I've been separated from is my dynamic solitude. Being out on the road on my bike at an hour before the birds are awake, when all of my other biker friends are probably sufficiently drunk and just going to bed and hours before most others are thinking of waking up, I found myself in a long lost nebula of sparkly solitude. And it was good.

In that simple ride I discovered so many new little nooks and crannies, stairways and trails, underpasses and routes. It reminds me of how little I truly know about my own hometown and how many other secrets the city holds - things that my other friends already know because biking truly is their life. It was a great organic motivation.

I also realized I could ride no handed. I know...big deal to those who have mastered their hipster tricks, but for me it was pretty awesome. I had always been stuck on the first wobble when I went to let go. For some reason, in that silverblue light of dawn, I just sat up and went. I felt like a kid again. I found byke joy. I have missed it. I have missed it all.

It's good to be back.

Bamboo Bikes!

Seriously...how cool is this?

BIKE! BIKE! STILL! ON!

There has been a glitch with the Bike! Bike! website, but I got in touch with Ynes from the Grease Pit and confirmed that the Bike! Bike! conference is still on. It's just the website that's causing problems.

Speaking of websites, The Grease Pit is now online. Pretty spare right now, but it should be a place to visit regularly, especially as Bike! Bike! gets closer. Check it...

Grease Pit Minneapolis

Photo from The Pulse

Collective Consciousness

Since I moved back last year, I was lucky to meet a lot of people in the Eau Claire bike scene. I see them on the steps at Racy's, bikes propped up. I see them in the distance, a fast cadence flash between buildings. I watch their bikes evolve. I've actually started to really see people's bikes as extensions of themselves.

One evening I was studying on a couch at Racy's when one of my friends wandered through, I said hello, but said that I kind of felt like I already said "hi" a while ago because I'd seen his bike there when I first arrived. He totally knew what I meant. When I see the blue IRO, I don't see a bike, I see Zacher. When I see the black frame with the yellow deep Vs, I see Gehrke. When I see the understated silver frame with all the spoke cards, I see Smuhl. I've started to leave notes on their bikes sometimes as a kind of post-dated conversation since I feel like I saw them. That got me to thinking that it would be fun to leave something else. Something fun. I thought bike haiku would be perfect. I'd call it "baiku."

The thing I think is interesting about google is that after you come up with a cool idea, you can type it in and see if anyone else is doing it. And they usually are. For instance, Velomann. I guess it's been around for a while. I think I'll still do it though. I need a hobby.

Image borrowed from here.