Sales Technique

Customer  -  Why does the back of the frame look like that?

Shop Guy  -  This bike has elevated chainstays. It allows them to tuck the rear wheel up underneath you, real tight. 

Customer  -  What's that do for you?

Shop Guy  -  It makes the bike more responsive; real good for doing wheelies.

Customer  -  Oh really?  Show me.

Shop Guy  -  Umm, uhh, naahhh, I'm not a wheelie guy. I'm more of a jumper.




True story.  (Names withheld to protect the not so innocent.)

Weather or Not...

I look out the window at the gray day. Winter is finally showing in North FL.  The high today is far below what we've had recently, and the wind bites a bit at bare skin.  Yesterday, I got texts and emails, saying it would be okay if we cancelled the morning ride due to in-climate weather. It was cold for us. High 40's when we rolled out.

But when I look out that window, I imagine the lone figure plowing his way against the wind. Doing the work that others save for fair weather.  I romanticize the struggle against the cold.  Maybe it's the images of Andy Hampsten over the Gavia.

Maybe it's wanting to emulate a fraction of the perseverance of those hardmen that raced the 2013 spring classics.

Maybe it's just me enjoying watching the local skinny fast guys shiver and shake. They certainly showed me no mercy during the summer, when my clydesdale sized fame wilted with core temps in the millions. 

I think mostly, I just like the change.  Cycling can take many flavors in our home town.  The brutal oppressive heat and humidity of the Summer, gives way to golden yellow Fall light, and the smell of leaf fires in rural yards.  Winter brings the cold black of night rides, until Spring rolls around with all of its colorful visuals and the sweet smells of nature awaking from its slumber.

Each has its time and place in forging us in our pursuit of fitness, growth, perseverance, mental toughness, or simple peace.  Like any great new album, play it long enough, you'll be ready for a change. Right about now, I must be ready.  That cold gray road sure looks good to me.

Let It Go

Daylight savings has ended, and it's quite dark when I leave the confines of the office, at the end of the workday.  Last week I dug out my light systems, to see what was still functional, and what was in need of repair.  Repair is a tough call on these light systems.  We ride a lot at night, and the guys I ride with go damn near as fast in the dark, as they do in the light. Consequently,  the light systems have gotten expensive, to produce the light needed to keep up with these fast bastards. I try to take care of them, but during the long hot summers, cycling through battery charges is far from my mind, and the batteries occasionally come up short the next season.

Batteries have gotten outrageous!  A new battery for my HID light runs about $135, ON SALE!!! That kills me, as I can buy an overseas built, new school LED light, for about $85. The whole system for $85, and they work great. I have one now, and use it almost every ride. My hang up is with the waste. I cannot stand to toss a perfectly good light, that simply lacks a battery. In the appraisal business, we call this incurable functional obsolescence. The cost to cure the problem, exceeds the contributory value of the item damaged. Or in this case, it exceeds the value of the ENTIRE system.  But the waste....

I go through the same thing with cordless drills. I have two drills that I bought for about $135. But both batteries are roached, and no longer take a charge. New batteries run $45/ea. Here we go again....

I have two dead drills and multiple dead cycling lights, all sitting in no man's land on a shelf. I can't bear to toss them, but they don't work.  I have a few friends that have dared to call me a hoarder. These are close friends, and can get away with that, but still... Is it truly hoarding when you just don't want to be wasteful?  I have a shop full of 10 generation old cycling parts, and I'm a hero when I pull out that 1994 widget that saves your favorite ride's shifting.  But the rest of the time, folks snicker and point, and suggest that I should be on that damned TV show. I can see it now, bald and wailing as some bright shirt and glove wearing jackass tosses my first generation XTR cranks into a trash bin, and a counselor tries to discover what grave happening in my life triggered my salvation excess.

Maybe there is some great issue in my past, that my psyche decides to bury beneath bike parts. But mostly, I believe it comes from not having money as kid growing up. So now, when I have something nice, I intend to hang onto it until it rots away in my fingers. Even in my shop days, I was a fixer, more than a replacer.  I always tried to get that guy's shifter to kick out a few more weeks, because I knew his money was hard earned, too.

But now I'm at a crux. These lights, they cost more to fix than a whole new light, so that runs counter to my saving the cash ideology.

But the waste...

I think I have a problem.  Anybody know a good hoarding counselor?

Jive Turkeys and Crash Test Dummies.

The scratching chatter of knobs seeking purchase set off alarm bells. Something was all wrong, but the time for correction had passed. I jumped up and got sorted, before Lil Ball could catch me wallowing in the dust. I choked back the adrenalin shot, determined not to let the jitters steal what flow was left. This was mine. It felt good, and I deserved it, dammit.  I got back up to speed, and carried it through the last bit of trail, barely visible in the dusk.

Earlier in the ride, I'd listened as StorminNorman explained how he had been trying to improve his cornering, by trying to use his third eye, through his belly button. I get the principle, but the visual is much better.  I was trying to figure out how he was gonna get a belly mounted monocle to stay in place, as he ponch-pointed his way through the woods, like some kind of half blind, Star-Bellied-Sneech.  I guess my mental mocking earned me a stick in my belly eye, because I never saw that root, I cross rutted over.

Wrecking Ball had his moment too, but I missed the show. He caught back on, describing the  perfect wheelie over a root section. Followed by even more perfect placement of  the front wheel exactly where it needed to go....to stop dead. His body had its own ideas on inertia. He said the whole move felt so perfect, that he was quite certain that he could ride it out, even though his hands had already abandoned their posts at the grips. Luckily his sternum was there to take up the slack, and he chest pounded his bars and stem until they relented their ridiculous effort to keep him upright, and dropped him to the forest floor.  All I can say is, it's a good thing he has that Terr-ection stem that hit him way up on the chest. Otherwise, he might have gotten a black-belly-eye.

I've always heard that if you're not crashing, you're not pushing. And without the push, their is no improvement. Taking stock afterward, I'm not so sure I feel all that improved. Mostly, I just feel like I ran out of talent.  Personally, I think that belly eye StorminNorman was chattering on about sounds way easier, and maybe somewhat less painful than my alternative.

Palm Trees are Candles in the Murder Wind

Mayhem, Bedlam or Angry-Friends, it just doesn't matter.

Have bike. Will travel.

The world gets topsy-turvy, be it the big world, or just the little ones in our heads.  Relatively, it can all feel the same.  Lately, our duly elected politicians squabble like school children and hold our government hostage.  Everyone speculates at who is to blame.  Within the crew, tensions arise and poison the vibe.

He said / She said.....whatever.

I should probably be a whole lot more involved in the big picture, or at least aware of these sorts of things, but the truth is I struggle with it.  My OCD nature would dictate that if I start trying to follow or understand our political miasma, I must then try to fully follow and understand. I'm afraid that will take way more time and commitment than I am willing to give.

In my little world, I'll take care of business to the best of my ability. It can leave you feeling dingy at times.  In the interim, I'll wash away the dirty with a little sweat. I'll buff away the stubborn spots with trail grit and sand. And I'll do it all from the saddle of my bike.

During tonight's scrub down, this tune came bubbling up. Seemed fitting.

When the hills of los angeles are burning
Palm trees are candles in the murder wind
So many lives are on the breeze
Even the stars are ill at ease
And los angeles is burning

Anti-Monday Ride Stoke

As always happens when the races come through town, the local TB/Caddy race course gets ridden in, all the lines come clean, and it's just crazy fast/fun.  The weather had even cooperated, and it was just about to get down right dry out there.  I'd forgotten what that looked like.  I got a couple of good days out there, and now the rains have returned.  Get it while you can, right?  On the upside, this rain is actually a front trying to push through, and on the other side should be our first taste of Fall. 

To combat the Monday's, and just to keep the early week stoke rolling, check this out. Really makes me wanna be out on my mtb.  Rain should be clear later in the week, and temps dropping 10+ degrees....

Sexy Sucks!

Remember that title phrase. It may save you a lot of heart ache in your life. That's what was running through my head as I stood as patiently as possible, trying not to lose my cool with the 5,785, 862 gnats that continually stormed my eardrums, nostrils, and eye sockets. Their attempts at broaching my cranial orifices was unrelenting. Sexy sucks.

It was one of the first sunny days in a long time. I'd even snapped a pic half hour earlier, to prove to myself later that it wasn't just a dream.  I was actually riding a dry bike, in the sunshine!!! I suppose with the better weather, came upbeat spirits, and a general overtone of feeling good. Who doesn't feel good when the sun shines warmly on your face?  All these good feelings motivated my dumb ass right on into the A group ride, as it rolled from the parking lot. Now, I've not yet seen the end of this ride, while still WITH this ride. I take my beatings in stride, with a general understanding that these beatings should eventually lead to my seeing the end of the ride, at the same time as the rest of the ride, and not some mildly embarrassing moment in time later. The ride did it's usual, and I was redlining from time to time, but hanging on longer than I expected. Then sexy started sucking, and not in a good way.

PANG!!!!!! The front end shuddered, and I looked down to see the errant rock that had caused a lapse in my much needed concentration, were I still to be in contact at the top of this never ending hill. I see no rock, but notice, quite unhappily, that my front wheel is beginning the tell-tale wobble of one in which one of its spokes has suddenly become more passenger, than participant. It gets bad enough that I can feel the drag as the rim rubs the brakes with every revolution. I pull out of the group to assess the damage, and Mr Harvey stops alongside. I encourage him that I'm good, and that he should continue his campaign to hang with this bunch of skinny folk. He explains, through the same heavy breathing that I'm experiencing, that he's quite happy to see how my wheel is doing. I decide to disconnect my front brake cable to gain maximum brake clearance, and simply take it easy back the way we came, albeit with only a rear brake. Great plan, except that sexy really sucks!

It would seem that skimpy little 18 spoke wheels really do not like it when one spoke up and quits. The other 17 struggle to maintain a semblance of order but utterly fail .My rim was wedged tight against the fork blade, and would not roll. I accepted the evac offer of Mr Harvey, and watched as he rolled off to get his car.

I should know better. I DO know better. But the siren song of sexy has plagued men since the beginning of time, and I'm no desire free monk. I bought my first sexy wheels a long time ago. Dura Ace beauties, all low spoke count and deep rims. Spokes all in pretty little pairs, reaching from the hub to the opposite side of the rim. So much marketing mumbo-jumbo about lateral stiffness and low rotational weight.  My first sexy wheels made my old Ultegra hubs and Mavic CXP rims looks downright dull. I rode them happily, and tried to ignore the weak points as they arose. At first the black anodized rims faded to some obscure mint green. No sweat. Probably my fault for using some harsh cleaner. I wondered if the front end of my bike was getting soft in corners. Surely, it couldn't be all that sexy up front. Everyone knows sexy is intended to make things stiffer. Then I broke a spoke. Sexy would never use a standard spoke. That would be...well....not sexy.  So I head to the shop, and then another, and then  another. Nobody carries sexy spokes? Why the hell not? I NEED a sexy spoke!!

After waiting for 2-3 weeks, I finally got what I needed. During that off time, I noticed that those were some fugly green rims I was running, and my 32 spoke back up wheels sure did turn nice. Reality sets in, the sexy wheels were traded for my first hydraulic disc brakes, and I built some damn fine wheels with NORMAL, everyday, run of the mill, get 'em at any shop around, spokes. I was back where I belonged. I've been building wheels for a long time, and I know what works. Funny thing, I rarely ever have trouble, with MY wheels. So I was happy as a clam, and safe again.

 Hi! My name is Bigworm, and I am a sexy addict. Sexy just never lets up. First it's a stolen glance at the deep curve of a 40mm carbon rim. Then a friend gets a job at a sexy wheel manufacturer, and he tells you all the GREAT new ways that sexy can improve your life. But I do remember that sexy can bite, so I resist and resist, until I finally succumb to half-sexy. That's only half dangerous, right? These pre-built wheels have pretty bladed spokes, but at least they are not the DUMB aluminum ones. That's just silly-sexy!!! The rims are only a little deeper, AND they are aluminum, because carbon is just silly-sexy! My rationalization wins out, and I'm on a pre-built, wheel SYSTEM. Mavic takes us above and beyond simple wheels, into systems. How can you go wrong with a system?

Apparently you can go so wrong, that you end up on the side of the road, on the first sunny day in weeks, trying to see just how long you can go with 252 gnats in each ear, singing a rousing chorus of "We will eat your sanity!!!", without running screaming into the woods, clawing at bug filled nostrils and eyes!  Seriously!!! Sexy sucks!!

Flash and I joked about it the next day, after I'd finally convinced my brain that there were no more small winged bugs deep in my ear canals. He offered up his back up wheels; the ultimate in un-sexy. He's got Ultegra hubs, Open Pro rims, and all silver. Not even some black laced spokes. Those wheels are the true blue granny panties of the wheel world. Nothing sexy whatsoever, but they offer full coverage, and they get the job done. I was so fed up with sexy at that moment, I almost offered to buy the damn things off him. 

Like I said before, I'm Bigworm, and I'm a sexy addict. I'm not quite fully clean and sober, but I'm working on it. Hubs were ordered. Rims sit patiently in a corner. I'll be back on 32, gloriously traditional j-bend spokes, none too soon. I've learned my lesson again.....for now.

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