Living For The City

Last night was the maiden voyage of Ashlee’s new steed, Purple Reign. What began it’s life as an old hot pink Miele that was sitting in some dude’s garage and after a lot of hard work (I wish I could find the procedural shots, I think they are on an external HD I forgot at work) has blossomed into a fearsome riding machine outshone only by it’s fearsome owner; Ashlee Sheridan.

PS Thanks for the gloves, boys! They rule!

Quarter Century! It’s all down hill from here, brother. Never grow up.

Just ask the Wonger

Tonight we dismantled Jason’s Fuji Track which was pretty cool because I’ve never really had to remove a bottom bracket or headset completely before and it was nice to see my little Filzer bike tool kit pay for itself yet again… Now this puppy is going off to paint so in a couple of weeks (or whenever) when he gets it back I’ll post up some pics of the re-assembly process. I wish I’d snapped a few before photos so we could see a good before and after but it’s not like finding a pic of a Fuji Track online will be difficult.

Jason Mansey wears Northern Reflections Supreme sweaters, whips out wicked burns on message boards and should quit smoking.

“I can’t support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”

Rob Ford
Toronto City Councillor
councillor_ford@toronto.ca

I thought about writing him a letter, in fact I did write it and it was very intelligent and well written but decided not to send it because it’s not going to change his mind so I don’t think any of us can hope for that, I just hope that someone on a bike pulls up next to him on the street, opens his car door and punches him in his fat fucking head.

Matty, Robbie and I worked on Matt’s Schwinn World Sport single speed conversion today and it’s looking pretty damn fine! There is a slight chain tension problem but once that gets sorted out he’ll be sitting on a winner. It was a little bit more complicated you’re your average conversion because the dropouts were so shallow that we had to drill / file them out which worked out beautifully.

He picked up the bike (sans rear wheel) on Craigslist for fitty bones and it had never been ridden… Amazing find! Throw in a used wheelset from Robbie B and a few small parts here and there and Matt’s got a basically brand new (NOS) bike for less than $100. Most importantly, it’s the WORLD SPORT so he can ride it anywhere – even in Europe!

I like getting stuff in the mail – got this on Thursday night… All you nerdlingers think it’s really something to match your shoes to your shirt? Let’s see you match your shoes to your shirt to your bike to your dog. Touch my penis.

ISIS played in town last night with Jesu and Zozobra… I didn’t go.
I think with a show like that I’d need to be in just the right mood, otherwise risking having a horrible time and not being able to really enjoy the music in the same way from that point on. I’ve said this the last few times ISIS came to town and always felt comfortable with that decision but I got “In the absence of truth” today and now I wish I’d gone. Then again, if I’d gone I’d probably wish I hadn’t.

This record picks right up where Panopticon left off which picked up right where Oceanic left off. I’ve listened to it on repeat all day and I hear different things each time, this band has an incredible attention to detail and all the little nuances they add are really special. The packaging in really incredible, it has a cardboard sleeve which, generally speaking, I hate because I think it’s incredibly wasteful / useless but at the same time, it really helps enhance the look of the CD so I understand why they’d do it.

I stumbled upon this website, http://shorpy.com/ and it’s full of old, amazing photos like these below. The coal miner boys photo at full size is creepy as all hell, I definitely recommend taking a few minutes to go through every page of this site, it’s full of little gems and is a nice glimpse into what life was like 100 years ago.

Another package came from IRO containing most of what we needed to get Aner BSOD #1’s bike on the road. He got such a killer deal from Tony @ IRO who is a real class act, seriously. If you’re looking for good bikes at good prices from a company that really cares and knows how to treat their customers, give IRO a whirl.

This weekend Coach McCracken (Andrew’s twin brother) and I are going to try to convert a Schwinn he got off craigslist to single speed… If it works out as I’m hoping it will, it’ll have been a great bike at a great price – it’s a few years old but it’s never been ridden and the thing still has tags on it!

I got a sweet delivery from IRO yesterday and made a couple trips to Urbane and MEC and spent the night burying “The Admiral” and giving birth to TROUBLE (Oliver’s middle name) and the inspiration should be fairly obvious – all black with a ring of lime green.

This is how it looked before:

And this is how it looks now:

It’s official; I love this bike more than any bike I’ve had before and likely more than any I’ll have in the future.

It’s no secret that I really like to ride. I don’t like riding in the rain but generally speaking I love riding in the snow – especially in snowstorms and at night when all the drivers are too afraid to take to the streets. There is something to be said for throwing down 50 foot skids like they are nothing and knowing that if you bail you’ve got a nice pillow soft landing…