Sick transit–Gloria Mundi

•January 8, 2010 • 1 Comment

At left, Knobby Nobility Escutcheon.
Unlike most athletes that lose value over time, I’m certain that many of us that never quit inventing (whatever that may mean) uses for bicycles, bike art, have become more useful. After all, our cohort–the Boomers–are very interested in their own phenomenon.
To remind all my 1980’s pals that we are –ahem–great, if simply for not postponing pleasure when we were young, I drew this little thing up. I might need a better motto up there on top.

“Gloria” is brief, but cool.  That is cut from a champagne foil.

“Sick transit, glorious mundi“?  I rather like that…

Found these bits of anodized alu stamped with legendary French brand in Charlie’s atelier trash basket.

“Can I have these?” I am a sucker for shiny objects, double that if in iridescent colors.

“Sure. There were dozens more I already threw out”.

Damn.

He’s at work on a secret project, destroying vintage pumps to boost the value of the only two left in existence.

You gotta admit, those Zefals were superior pumps.

You



Posted in "knobby nobility", Charlie Cunningham, Taj Mahovel, Technology
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Grateful Dreads!

•January 5, 2010 • 2 Comments

Ricky Boscarino inhabits the Sheldon Brown memorial beard!

Sheldon Brown’s Tribute Beard (crafted by the great Tracy Wilde from five years worth of Alice B. Toeclips’ projectile tresses)  needed a proper home.
At some other pack rat’s house.  Preferably a museum.

Luna Parc is perfect, a work in progress showcasing Ricky Boscarino’s singular talents. He’s a third generation Italian artist.  He makes very very cool stuff. Charms, jewelry , pottery.  If your covetousness chakra isn’t ignited when eyeing  his website, you are probably  a Buddhist.

The uterus pin jumped out at me just now..

Ricky B. is a biker too..who rides with MORBiD: Muddy Off  Road BIker Dudes.

The word ‘dude’ used loosely.

Club motto—”Bike ’til you rot!“.

I do like a good motto.
Wombats latest : “Seems fast to us”. Ricky, we need a good design for the patch…

Posted in art, clutter, heinous name dropping, Jacquie Phelan
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First Wombat Ride of 2010

•January 3, 2010 • 3 Comments

It was a very wet, white foggy day, all the trees dripping on the treehouse roof. We had to be up at six to meet with a traveling visitor.
It was probably C’s first time up before daylight in years.
“This is such a thrill!” I warbled. “Now you know what it’s like when I go swimming“.
He was a bit less jazzed to be shuffling through a dim, unheated hovel.
But it was different: the front room was at a record tidiness level.
Which means my Scary Room was piled higher than usual with bags of unsorted Desk Papers, Couch Junk, library books, and (gasp) food that wouldn’t fit in the fridge.
Visitor Chris was a welcome face. We’ve been pretty chary of the bike industry for a few years, and to reconnect with a straight-talking,  intelligent person who is one of the maybe ten people that Charlie took out on a ride (Muir Woods, 1984) before going Full Hermit.
Then another knock: Frances M., who just joined the club.
In pearls.
Bug was at the parking lot–young mom with kid still on the breast–unfurling her carrot cake for us.
Heather and her friend came a skoash later and we were off.
Lots of walkers, dogs, and other cyclists on the trail.

We stopped for tea at Madrone Dome. See if you can identify the Wombats gang sign.
Some guys rode by, and told us it was sunny up at the top of Tam.
A quick change of plans: Some of us would go out for half the day, and the others would Stick To Plan and ride the Lagunitas picnic loop.
Fran and I got to the top, sun too bright to look at,  above the vast fog blanketing the world. Mt. Diablo, & St. Helena were visible (plus a snowy Sierra range on remote eastern horizon).
Made me wanna strap on my fogshoes, and march across  all that the fluffy vastness…

Posted in hoarding, Jacquie Phelan, Ride, WOMBATS

Hogmanay!

•January 1, 2010 • 2 Comments

I still  haven’t left yet, it’s seven and I’m missing a ride because…my  computer is not in the mood. For. Typing.  OR rotating the damn pix. (Since sorted.)

I’ve got my Pure Glesga Patter tea-towel (thank you velopest, you’re the best) so I can say:
“Howzitgoanchief?” (How are you?)

“We wur oot oan the ran dan” (we painted the town red)

Here’s a little seasonal musik for yez.

Posted in Calendar, Fairfax, Jacquie Phelan, lame wordplay, Scotland
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Entrepenurial Photographer has YOU in view

•December 28, 2009 • Leave a Comment

JP, Curtis Inglis (foto: mtguru)

The headline is not misspelled. I just love neo-logisms…Entre+penury.

I’m all business at the start of the Napa SingleSpeed World’s in 2008.  Probably takng a picture of my photographer.  I love photographers, images, and this collective dream of   a bicycle cult.

Napa was my fourth world championship among the single cognoscenti, with each year’s outfit more stunning than the last.

The race course was held on the grounds of the old state mental hospital. The one that Governor, then President Reagan suffocated by depriving it of funding.

Of course, the  vast tract of sylvan repose, hundreds of acres,  had to be sold off…luckily Napa folk toiled for years until it could become undeveloped parkland. Is it just a happy coincidence that several hundred bona-fide madpeople who manage to survive thanks to the bicycle? In a way, it’s a poetic justice to have the fools on the hill….

The tie, vest, shirt and jacket say it all: “Here come the suits”.

About “entre-penury”: several times the mini-Canon did a good job, good enough to snag a small fee for service. Racing hasn’t paid for…oh, twenty years, so why not documenting races?

I remember how hard ‘real’ photographers like Pierre Hilgers, Tom Moran, Dave Stewart and  Robert George worked, jammed together in a pack at the start line while I waited in the pack, pinned, primed, and shivering –despite the shabby cashmere armwarmers–in my lycra suit.   (this at World Championship races in foreign countries, where the American team was managed by extremely drunk officials enjoying their junket)fanning out over the course just as the gun went off.

I dropped that poor thing a few too many times, and yesterday I took its stepsister with the 10 gigabites out for a foggy hike.
Friend Nick Thain who plays a lot with cameras and fotoshoppe commended my ‘eye’.
Other friend reminded me not to get all swelled up.
Damn.
PIcture results, see right.
Is it TOTALLY uncool to believe one is ‘great’, even with no tangible evidence?
Thinking about Dumb Luck, which all Entrepenuryal artistes enjoy.
Some score, others not, but all benefit from
a) wearing old, very fine well-made clothing until threadbare
b) ignoring ‘received wisdom’ from consumer cult
c) a fertile imagination…or is it ‘furtle‘?
d) decades of practice living low on the hog.

Posted in Alice B. Toeclips, Jacquie Phelan, lame wordplay, media, SSWC08

Flogging Dead Horse

•December 22, 2009 • 7 Comments

Second rupture. I never got a pic of repair #2.


Facial reconstruction was a failure

Both CC and I were very sad about that broken B-72 nose.

To surprise me, he popped in three big rivets a little further up the body of the saddle…doing this into steel requires some skill and a nice sharp drill bit. He was determined to make that comfortable Brooks saddle work.
Face it. It was the saddle’s crisp British accent (as much as the bike) that called me over when I rolled past it two weeks ago.
Neither of us can throw anything away.
The fix was perfect. Each rivet molded into the correct curve.
I hopped on the bike,
hit the street with the usual jolt
and the saddle nose bounced off into the gutter.
Estimated travel distance: three feet.
Yes, there is such thing as a worn-out saddle.
He had mentioned a moldy aroma as he drillled holes in the leather.
My mind wandered to the famine-pictures, where people boil leather belts and stuff when they are starving.
Should I try to stew the poor thing?
Answer: am I starving?

Posted in Charlie Cunningham, Cycling, hoarding, Jacquie Phelan, Uncategorized

Nose jobless

•December 20, 2009 • 1 Comment

I dressed up in red, and pushed off to witness “Crank for The Bank”, a foodbank benefit ride/race hosted by Fairfax Cyclery and the Gestalt Haus.

The driveway has a pronounced lip on it, and as I jounced down that two inch drop, my saddle gave up its forty year job. What I felt was a distinct sag all of a sudden.
When I slid off the saddle to look at it while riding, I felt a sharp pinch in my thigh flab.
After re-settling into the formerly comfortable saddle, I felt another pinch, stopped the bike, and realized that the saddle had split at the rivet.
At the pub, people said “that’s the end of the saddle”.
An hour later back at home, CC said, “that can be re-riveted in place–the rest of the leather seems pretty thick.”
With some proofide, the leather might regain some souplesse.
My thigh sports a double bruise, and will return to mayonnaise white in a week.

Posted in Jacquie Phelan, lame wordplay, Uncategorized

Bryan, JP on the Katy Trail

•December 16, 2009 • Leave a Comment

The 42 ride seems like it happened a million years ago.
Knowing that Bryan Reckamp and Jo Sanchez are still in the saddle every day makes me want to pedal a block in their honor.
I bet another couple dozen riders do the same.

Posted in 42 ride, Alice B. Toeclips

“Sheldon Red” ready to ride

•December 15, 2009 • 1 Comment

Bicycle Works, Conrad OHO, and CC all contributed.

It was tough, last Friday, when Spokey told me that the damage to the front end of the bike made it unreliable.

I tried to shrug off the feeling of riding about six miles in sleet with a bike trailer, hauling the carcass across the Ross Valley, braving  scary Friday traffic ..all for…uh…(sound of tear rolling down crow-feet corrugated cheek) uh…beauty.

I tried to fall out of love with the  impeccable red boy’s bike  that had prematurely been given a name…even wrote “Malo! Muy Malo” as a way to warn anyone hoping to restore it.
Went home with it, and Charlie took a look.
“The steerer’s such soft metal…easy to straighten…and the headtube isn’t that ovalized…a little controlled hammer work…. blahblahblahblah re-ream and it’s good…why not just fix it an’ get a new headset. …blahBLAH..then, if it doesn’t work, we can declare it dead”.

For  three hours he made hammering and filing noises in the 43 degree shop while I stoked the Jotul and tackled a hopeless cause within my area of expertise: reconstituting his threadbare riding corduroys with a new “bonobo butt” (colorblind-matched, haphazardly stitched) , and felt lucky again.

And lo! With a cheap  1″x  27 mm headset and about$400 worth of bicycle husbandry, the frame was back in play.

Just about then, Geoff Halaburt comes by pick up the Merlin Charlie’s operated on, and he presents me with four magnificent bottles of wine, created by women vintners. The cup is overflowing.

Stop press. Just got three magnificent archival quality photos from Marc Elliott of Color Services (Needham, Massachussetts)….an early Christmas present. Marc is an  artist and a member of the knobby nobility (don’t forget: earlybirds on fat tires in the eighties are by definition in this group).  He’s a rider who watched me ‘dispatch’ the competition, and remembers hearing about the time race impresario/Ross team mgr John Fitzpatrick backed over a custom-built Peter Weigle bike.
I swear, that was the most exciting thing that happened that day.
Everyone was having fun, and then some stupid car (well, OK the promoter IN the car) destroys a bicycle….

UGNHHH. Peter, what ever happened after that?
Did Team Ross make good?

In Massachusetts that year there weren’t women in my league yet, so I had most fun racing the Floridians from Team Jamis.  They really suffered those Western Massachusetts hills at Wendell State Park.

But I digress.
The red bike, now dubbed Sheldon Red, was brought back from the brink, and then obsessively re-oiled, reconstructed by OHO (local bike luminary and health buff).  I threw in the rag, frustrated with the nit-pickyness of putting three speed hubs back together. Jelani allowed me to tap out a press release for their fledgling store/community workspace, where each gives according to her ability…

Posted in "knobby nobility", art, hoarding, Jacquie Phelan

Wiser? No…Ratty-er, yes

•December 10, 2009 • 3 Comments

AND feeling very Cared About.

Ratty Claus

Loving how fast the time flies. Except the book needs to be published before books are obsolete. Oh, right. Must write it, illustrate it.

The card at left is Marcie Collins, local artist and ceramicist who can do anything involving pen, ink, clay, and even bits of fake fur…

As for celebrating with friends like that time three years ago at True’s house: no.  More than one party every five years is unseemly at a certain age.  BUT I am looking forward to another self-produced surprise party (since no one RSVPs, every party is a surprise, isn’t it?)   next year.

Theme:  Ain’t it good to be alive?

Yesterday Charlie personalized my (fathomless) English pewter mug, rescued from  dumpster down the street.

Upon presenting it to me yesterday (we both thought yesterday was the tenth of December) he said, “there’s a story”. He pointed to a little bleb of silver on the inside of the cup.

“I got out what I thought was the right tool, and punched right through the thin metal on the first letter–I ‘d thought it would be thicker. So then I had to silver-solder the hole in the side of the mug…and go a whole lot more gently…”

He started with the ‘n’ because the way the dremel turned meant going right to left, which also means he could see where he was cutting.

All this because the trouble and expense of ‘real’ engraving, with all the flourishes I felt I needed, were too much..

This lives at the local pub. Clear glass bottom. Very cool.

Posted in hoarding, Jacquie Phelan

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