1 Step Closer

So I stripped down the Vigorelli and have all of the parts stacked neatly in a cardboard box awaiting an out of town guest to hand me cash and make them his. In the meantime, I have my wheelset ideas all ready to take shape...should I build them? ...probably not, thats what Kevin is for. Next on the docket...components!

Chase and some Ultegra to boot...

So I have decided to sell the Cannondale Chase I recently acquired, as well as the Ultegra group off of my Vigorelli. The whole idea behind the sale of said items is to fund a Campagnolo Centaur group to outfit the Vig. As it turns out I seem to have a problem when it comes to really cool stuff (i.e. Campy, Chris King, etc.) If by chance you know someone who is and/or may be interested in a quality groupset with less than 50 miles on it give me a holler. I posted the group on Craigslist.com
*******************SOLD!!!!!!!!!********************************* Hooty Hoo!

FrankenSingle Lives!!

Here is the newly acquired Single Speed that I was blabbing about at LBL and probably some other occasion....the Centurion LeMans 12. This rig was donated by a customer who did not want to spend the coin to repair it, lucky me! The whole beast was stripped of its Sun Tour Power shifters and a new Shimano 17t freewheel tossed on...ok, I put MKS Lambda pedals on it too. The gearing is set up as a 40, 17 which is super quick and perfect for a Bar Monster. Next on the docket is to switch out the white cable jacket for yellow....because I can.

Post LBL

So I have just returned from the dirty south and arguably the funnest weekend I have had in many a year. It went down a little something like this:

Day One:

Friday was merciless, as I looked up at the clock every 15 mins only to realize exactly that...it had only been 15 mins. Once the clock hit 5 bells I was on a tear to get to John Rahns house so we could get on the road to freedom. The drive down was quite scenic through all of the Reservations...one can never really understand how much Native Americans love the sport of basketball until you drive through the Winnebago Reservation. At our stop for the night (Fremont) John and myself thought it a great idea to order up lots of the beautiful concoction you all might know as beer....I pulled up a piece of carpet around Midnight...game over.

Day Two:

John and myself wake up at 6:15am ready to rock and roll and end up cracking our morning beers as soon as we step out of the car in Lincoln. The next hour and a half was full of much beer drinking and listening to the magic tunes of none other than Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine. The day started out with rain so I was prepared to be soaked all day when all of a sudden the clouds parted and we were left with a 65 degree sunny day that could not have been any better! 57 miles of road meandering from Lincoln, NE to Crete, NE where I had some sweet potato fries and a Philly. The ride home didnt happen for John though....his Castro Valley decided to give up the ghost and popped 4 spokes...suck!

Day Two (later):

John and I headed up to Fremont before the rest of the crew and decided to drink a bit at the local eating establishment, which ended up with John trying to buy a farmer a shot of Jose Cuervo...and the farmer deciding that his better judgement would prevail and he happily declined.

All in all there were 11 of us on this glorious ride! I am anxiously awaiting Schnoctobeerfest in October.

LBL

So I have been waiting for a certain ride to take place, one that is said to be full of fun and shenanigans....yes, I said shenanigans. In the blur that comprises my day I seem to have spaced off the fact that this ride (known as LBL...Lincoln, Beatrice, Lincoln) is THIS weekend. Thanks in whole to the Kernel for jogging my memory, otherwise it would have passed me by and I would have been pissed to say the least. I am short a Single Speed rig anymore so I will be doing this with the 'Check, but hopefully someday soon I will find a worthy frame to once again build up and have myself a single.

Takin' Shots

So as I made my daily commute to the shop this morning I was struck by a passing vehicle on Cliff Avenue just hardly south of Avera McKennan. I was minding my own business roughly a block or so from work when a passer bys side view mirror hit me in the left shoulder. I did NOT go down somehow, but to add insult to injury the clown in his cage decided that he had better flip me off and honk at me while simultaneously riding the curb all the way to 26th street. By this time I am beside myself pissed and started cranking away trying to catch this car at the red light....as it turns out the gods must have been smiling at this guy and turned the light green. I'm not exactly sure what I would have done had I caught this magnificent specimen of jackassery but I'm sure it would not have been pretty. I claim to be no tough guy but c'mon....almost running someone down on the street and then flipping off and honking at them?!? Keep an eye peeled for a white chevy something or other with a Wisconsin plate...

Cable-less Shifting

Today at work a rep who normally comes through pretty regularly decided to show up again today. Not only did the rep decide to show up, but there were visitors in tow. The visitors (from Yakima and Shimano) came in with a new assortment of nice wheelsets as well as a(n) Orbea Orca full carbon road bike equipped with...wait for it, wait for it....electronic shifting. When I first heard of this new electronic shifting I immediately thought to myself "is this really necessary" and after having had a chance to ride a bike equipped with such a thing I am left feeling the same way.

The biggest "attraction" to electronic shifting is being able to shift while under load. The rep who wanted me to try out the Orbea told me to "start sprinting and shift while doing so"...well thats what I did and although the drivetrain did make shifts, it did so with a super-annoying over-the-top clunk!! I will give you the fact that I am a novice biker and mechanic and probably don't know shit but I do know this....if I dropped the coin to pick this stuff up (roughly 2 grand on top of the cost of a Dura Ace kit) and it let out a clunk and a bang everytime I shifted I would be pretty pissed to say the least.

In conclusion, an amusing talk with my pal Clay C about this newfangled shifting setup left me completely stoked with my cable actuated and single geared rigs instead. Hooray for (lack of) technology!

In Full Commute Mode

So this is the current state of the 'check, basically just transplanted the commuter friendly bits of kit from the Volpe and voila. The first picture is of the new TRP cantilevers that I decided to roll with. At any rate, its time to put a grip of miles on it!

Suck

So this weekend was supposed to include me going up to Minneapolis / Saint Paul for the Art Crank show...turns out Kevin was heading to Tacoma so I ended up having to stay back. BOO! I feel pretty bad actually because I have made plans to go to those glorious cities more than a few times and hang out with C and his wife, but my plans always manage to fall through! To add insult to injury it snowed like a mad bastard last night...but its cool, its melting like a mad bastard as well. Hopefully we are in store for good weather and good luck on my end!