hi - my name is dave, and I like to party

In my spare time from my spare time, I have been moonlighting as a Geology Lab instructor down to the local college.  I enjoy it, they pay me money - it's a win win type of a situation.

Last night, after a riveting power point presentation on the awesomeness of sedimentary rocks, I had a student approach me after class.  To be completely fair, this guy looks familiar to me, but that's not saying much - most folks look familiar to me.  Anyway, after class, he approaches me and tells me that I look familiar to him, and then asked if I hang out with some feller that he knows.  I thought about it for a moment and couldn't place the guy.  Sorry, Nope.  He then blindsided me with - "Do you hang out at a lot of gay parties?"

Seriously, how do you answer that?

kp - here's the full body shot of the new decal.

colors that end in urple

The misses sent me a couple of shots of her morning trail ride on her one speeder.  This frame was Number 7 and I ended up building it with some toe overlap problems.  I have hated the bike ever since and it has seen far too much time hung up in the garage than any bike should have to endure.  I removed the front triangle and corrected the toe overlap problem and went ahead and put some of them there new fangled stopping devices on it while I was at it.  The new front end is welded, rather than fillet brazed, just because.  No other reason.  I like that it is currently outfitted with the optional school bus feature there on the seatpost.  She drops the youngster and the trail-a-bike off at school and then heads out on some of San Jorge's finest.

Complete side story, but still worthy of telling - The misses showed up at school one day to pick up the youngster and found that the trail-a-bike was missing.  Missing, like stolen.  Awesome.  I am still not sure how the two of them got home, but the misses does have a rather large basket on the front of her daily driver.  Later that day, we received a phone call from the princiPAL and he informed us that the bike had been returned.  A little feller (1st grade age) who enjoys tinkering in the garage repairing bicycles with dad, saw the bicycle-esc object, thought for sure that he could easily bring it back to working order and went ahead laid claim on it.  "Shoot, all that thing needs is a front wheel and a feller like me to install it."  Kudos to dad for setting the kid straight and getting it back to the school - and a high five to the kid that likes to wrench on bikes.  How many do you know?

Of other interest.  A Rogue that had been purchased at a yard sale arrived in my shop a while ago.  That's right.  A yard sale.  This is a custom road frame built by the hands of Mister Jeff Rogers out of Columbus Genius tubing that was found at someone's junk sale.  Fully equipped with Shimano's Durace component group (that's shimano's Italian group, make sure that you pronounce the che).  The top tube had a crack in it so I removed it and replaced it. Good to go.  It's very blue.

I'm off to eat some lunch.  Probably some sort of a food that ends in amburger.

and cut you like you want me to

Somewhere's in the neighborhood of about 14 years ago, I was dating a girl.  Shocking, I know.  We were officially in the "we're not officially sure of where our relationship is headed" stage of our relationship and Christmas was rapidly approaching.  I had no idea what to get her, so I ended up settling on some lame Edward Abbey book.  I'm pretty sure that I spent around $7.00 total on the gift.  I was pretty classy back then.  Christmas arrived, we exchanged gifts, and I ended up with a really, really nice pocket watch.  She ended up with a really lame book about some gang of monkeys who were armed with wrenches (with the $7.00 suggested retail price printed on the back).

Fast forward to Christmas of 2011 (nowadays folks skip, but I am holding on to the fast forward) where a similar thing happened.  I ended up on the receiving end of a really, really nice hand crafted knife.

All Tamer got in return was a nasty case of the hives.

Here he is, right after the unwrap, and right before the allergic reaction set in.  Mental note: a mason jar of raw honey from a local bee keeper may not be the best christmas gift.  Six mason jars of raw honey from a local bee keeper is just asking for trouble.

I should have gotten him that damn book.

i like my sugar with coffee and cream

Working on a little something for brother ben with at least 15 pieces of flair. 

 

The new year has started off right.  Charlie moved to town and the trails 'round these parts have been top notch.  Then, out of nowheres, I got a phone call from JJ who suckered me into running a half marathon at the end of February.  Within ten minutes of me committing myself to it, I promptly FELL off of the misses town bicycle (the one hiding behind the orange sofa) as I was riding home from the neighbor's place.  As good fortune would have it, I had some clog type shoes on that were immediately ejected during my get off which led to me giving the asphalt a ball peen-ing with my exposed heel.

There are several things to be learned from this experience.  Here they are in no apparent order:

1.  When maintaining your wife's daily driver, never, ever, ever think that the loose-ish chain will be fine.  The loose chain, mixed with my homeward bound, track worthy sprint, ended we me dropping the chain, instigating the death wobble and ending with a jacked up heel.

2.  Make sure when you do have a residential get off to manage to control the expletives that flow so freely in situations like these.  Mister Hafen, concerned with all of the commotion, came outside only to step right into a thick haze of vulgarity.  Add embarrassment to pain at this point in the crash sequence.

3.  When walking three blocks home is too painful on the injured appendage, you are always better off getting the chain back on the bike, opening the cantilevers, and limping home with the rear wheel wobble.

4. No matter how intriguing the sales pitch is, anything involving running always ends bad.

To be completely honest, the only thought that went through my head on the way down was, "these are my favorite pants...."

squish

S stopped by on his way back to Tucson and brought in tote a little love for the shop.  The misses has one of them there fancy squishy type forks on the front of her trail bicycle and the fork has been blowing oil past the seals for a while now.   I have been known to tear into suspension forks in the past out of desperation, but really, the last fork that I had any business pulling apart was the Mag 21 from Mister Turner.  I could throw down a rebuild and add a long travel kit (wrap your mid around 60mm of travel) into one of those babies in a jiffy.  What was that, 1996?  We dropped the lowers off of the fork, removed the old seals and wipers and had the new seals and wipers installed in about 10 minutes.  The tool, that red intrusive looking device up there, is made right here in the U.S. of A. by Real World Cycling (the same feller behind Enduro Bearings)and it is amazing.  Sure, it presses in seals.  That's a given.  The cool part is recessed area of the tool that allow the top end of the wiper to slide up and in which protects it from being mangled during the installation.  The laser etched markings on the tool also keep you from installing anything upside down.  Which is always a good thing.
Fresh oil, new wipers and seals - that squisher fork is esmooth.  Money well spent, if'n yer into that kind of stuff.

the ocean breathes salty

we gave thanks for the pacific ocean this year.

it's all about making that g.t.a.

A big thanks to Wes from MegaDelux for his well put together interview.  I have had a couple in the past, and overall, the experience has been poor.  All of the questions seem to be centered on wanting to know how much my frames weigh, and why they are not constructed of woven carbon tubing and high strength resin.  I guess that is the question everyone needs to have answered at this point in the game.  This one here was different.  And good.
Check out the above link when you've got a moment to burn, or check out the interview here.