Living For The City

So yesterday I was perusing Surfstation and I happened upon Atlanta based artist / designer Mark Weaver and really, really dug his work.

So much so, that I bought a print within about 5 minutes. Now that’s effective marketing – no bullshit guerrilla campaigns, just good work! But I digress…

What I liked the most about Mr. Weaver was his Make Something Cool Every Day series. I wish I had the time, motivation or creativity to churn out interesting things every day (or anywhere close) but I was a little inspired and took some a very short while today to make some things. Maybe they’re cool?

I’m going to try to keep it up but I’d probably do better if it was Make Something Cool Every Week, and even that is a stretch.

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While I was drawing the lock I had a look over at the Mini Evo & cable sitting on my desk and decided, once again, to trim the fat as per Colin‘s suggestion.

You’d be surprised how much difference a few millimeters makes.

Ok, probably not, but peep the George Michael coffee mug. Serious.

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Ohhh Lee Valley; I swear I can’t go into the place without picking something up. Given the amount of projects I’ve got around the house at this point, though, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Yesterday I walked out with this sweet OG Robertson bit set. Grown Man Business.

Afterwards, the lady and I went over to HD to pick up some wood for what will eventually be my bike closet.

Still gotta do some painting and hang some more shelves / pegboard / hanging jars like your pops probably has but I roughed everything in last night and I think it’s going to be sweet!

Should easily store 3 bikes, a bunch of tools, and will hopefully leave just enough room for me to store my gimp.

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Shout out to my main man Harley who’s having a rough week. Get better soon, little buddy.

Give ‘em hell.

I actually meant to post about this a couple of weeks ago but I didn’t have my camera with me and when I went back to snap, someone already had the good sense to remove this useless piece of garbage from the ring & post to which it was attached.

Apparently some genius, well versed in the art of guerrilla marketing, sees fit to take up our often limited bike parking space with big red corrugated plastic scooters directing us to their website.

My curiosity has been piqued; what is it that I need to see so badly that you feel the need to annoy me in order to get me to see it? Oh, scooters. Scooters are cool and everything but I’m aware that they exist so what makes this particular scooter worth looking at? Oh, you made a video.

I mean, hey, they’ve taken the time collect a bunch of young, fashionable douchebags and make a little video for all of our viewing pleasure so the least we could do is take a cue from their poorly placed advertising and check it out, right? Wicked, you’ve got people talking. Success!

As if having scooters that think they’re bikes on the streets and in our way isn’t bad enough… Now we’ve got ads for scooters that think that they’re bikes too! What a world.

Dear Fuckfaces,
Please keep your advertising off our parking spots.
Thank you,
The Captain.

Photo courtesy of Spacing.

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Speaking of retardo advertising and people that don’t really understand their demographics (or maybe they do, which is even scarier). I keep seeing “fixies” popping up in advertising and store windows everywhere and it always leaves a sour taste in my mouth. They look cool, they’re fun to ride, all those things… I get it, I ride one. But just because something is cool doesn’t mean that you have to attach yourself to it – it’s ok for something to be cool and just let it stay that way. Or is it?

Flip cap? Track stand? Coffee shop? Ghetto Fabulous? This has to be a joke.

This is, by far, the most impressive “fixie” shark jump I’ve seen as of yet.

via Tracko

Ronces Junkin’

Tinkerin’

Breadwinnerin‘

Falconin’

Baby (Italian) Spiderin’

Caffeinatin’

Panelin’

Breakin’

Still Panelin’

Work hasn’t really let up much; hence the lack of posts about fun things in my life but there is a light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully by next week my life will return to normal… you know, just mildly retarded instead of completely retarded and I’ll be able to refocus my energies on my house, my gal, my family, my friends and my bikes.

I was able to sneak away from the office Wednesday evening to watch the champion Missfits’ second game of the year where they handed the Woodbridge Eagles a serious spanking. Ok, probably not actually from Woodbridge but might as well be. Oh ay, AY OH!

Killer rolled through…

…with Maybel…

…on his Tofu modded Steamroller townie.

We finished the night off with brews and burritos on a picnic table at Bellwoods; the perfect way to top off a perfect evening to a not so perfect day.

I’ve been working a lot lately; on average I’ve been putting in 12-14 hour days and not really doing much of anything else, and certainly nothing for myself, so on Friday I figured I’d treat myself to some new stuff. I like stuff.

I picked up some Deda Pista drops a little while ago but I tend to run 25.4 and 26 bars so I didn’t have a stem to match the 31.7 clamp diameter of the Dedas. I figured that getting those up and running would be the focus of this particular foray further into the world of conspicuous consumerism.

I snagged some of the All-City grips which are pretty affordable and I think will suit my purposes just fine.

Thus far, I’ve been pretty impressed with the All City line-up of components and the price-point is pretty hard to beat. $200 for Toshi Doubles – $30 for All-City. I’m sure the Toshis are better but are they 6 times better? Not likely. Does their packaging say pop-a-wheelie on it? I don’t think so.

When that motherfucker pinched my saddle a few weeks back they nearly stripped one of the bolts. Nearly; so when I clamped down on the new saddle I finished the job. Fortunately, Thomson sells replacement bolts pretty cheap so with a few dollars all that is right and good in the world has been restored.

I think the Deda Pista drops look great but I’m not convinced that I enjoy using them on the street. I’ll give them another couple days and see how I adjust but at this point I think they’ll be relegated to (rare, sadly) track duty only. The lack of hand positions, comfortable / practical ones anyway, is a huge drawback for me so I’m guessing the Nittos will find their way back onto my steed in the coming week.

What’s that? Rust in the chainstays? I’ve lost two frames to this in the past and don’t intend to lose a third! Time to get out that framesaver or Boesheild – hopefully it’s not too late!

Hey, at least my friends are wicked cool.

I mean, wouldn’t they have to be to roll with this?

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I’d be remiss not to mention the best score of the weekend:

$10 at Hits and Misses!

Yes, I’m at work today. Don’t mean to sound like an ingrate, you know, I’m always thankful to have a great job but being here on the last day of a long weekend when the weather was shit for two days prior really burns my ass.

I had two friends have their bikes go missing last week so keep an eye out for either of these and use whatever means necessary to remove the person from either of these bikes and return them to their rightful owners.

Scotty‘s Scott SS MTB:

I don’t have a photo but here are the details: Scott brand, all black, oversized tubing, SS conversion (using chain tensioner), bar ends, Scott written across the handlebars.

I recognize that this will be a hard one to spot but should you see it, take it. It was given to him by his father so whoever took it didn’t just fuck with Scott, he fucked with Chuck and you don’t want to do that, trust me.

Dadball is on the loose!

Sandy‘s Concorde

I don’t have too many details but it looks to me like a neon yellow / white / pink Concorde road bike with flat bars and a white, perforated leather saddle. Apparently the rear derailleur hanger is slightly bent which may help identify the bike.

Just sittin’ in first class, wearin’ a suit, readin’ Monocle. You know, the yuuuge.

Being the mayor has it’s advantages sometimes.

I’m off to New Jersey for the day.

It’s going to be amazing; 16 hour day for a 1 hour meeting. Solid.

There is a fella on the local BikeForums that says he hasn’t had a flat since 1976. I definitely haven’t had that kind of luck (hell, in 1976 I was -2 years old) but, despite the amount of flats I’ve fixed for others I don’t really remember the last time I had one personally.

Maybe last June? That would mean that I’ve been flat free for almost a full year; a personal best! Even if not, I definitely haven’t had a single blow-out since installing Marathons on my winterbike last November which was beautiful! Flats in the snow/rain/whatever are the worstever!

After Killer‘s BBQ on Friday night I rode home in a blackout. I got home and my house was still without power so I opted to go out and meet up with some friends on the East side.

I was really enjoying how dark and quiet the streets were and was looking forward to rippin’ around and then Thwack! Wizz, wizz, wizz, wizz, wizz… Sheeeeit.

No biggie; I wasn’t far from home so opted to just call it a night and fix it in the morning. I went out to run some errands in the afternoon and while trying to avoid being taken out by a meandering cabbie and a wobbly supercyclist I spotted a chunk of brick a millisecond too late and then Thwack! Wizz, wizz, wizz, wizz, wizz… Sheeeeit.

Two in two days! Horseshit! Right? Fortunately I was right next to Bellwoods which gave me the opportunity to take a little break and set up shop on a sunny park bench.

Also, fortunately for me I had my little tool roll-up with me – I didn’t the day before (which is rare) because I had an unfortunate incident with some suds and needed to give my bag an opportunity to dry out.

Also, very fortunately for me I replaced my pump last week and was able to properly put this guy to the test; passed with flying colours.

For the past couple of weeks; with people bringing their bikes out of storage and making them roadworthy I’ve been giving little flat workshops at the office so my co-workers don’t get stuck paying $20 for something they could do for $3.

The flat workshop benefits are two-fold; a) I increase the speed and efficiency of my own repairs through practice and explanation which proved itself handy this weekend and b) one of the other office vegans brings me treats as a means of saying thank you.

Add that to the treats my lovely lady brings me at work and I’ve got plenty energy (if you wanna call it that) to burn off on the bike.

Win / Win. Sort of…

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This weekend also marked the Regulators season opener and it was a good one! We may not have won, but we played well and the sideways one banged one out of the park for good measure.

ACE came by last night so we could build up his girlfriend’s biciclette. This thing is a true frankenbike built almost entirely from the parts bins of Ace and his many friends. There is a little bit of work yet to be done but it went together well enough last night for my man to be able to ride it home. It has been a while since I worked on a nice conversion; I took a break after building entirely too many bikes a couple of years ago, but I really enjoyed putting this together with Ace and finding solutions to the various problems that building conversions with used parts often does… Stripped nuts ‘n bolts, parts that need to be grinded off, chains of the wrong width, chains of the wrong length, etc… Fortunately I’ve got enough little do-dads in stock to be able to address most of them. All in all, it went together quite smoothly and I think Keesha is going to love it!

Happy Birthday Ace – have fun in Montreal this weekend… Enjoy the bike, Keesha.

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I’m still trying to battle off a cold but trying to enjoy the decent weather in between rainy days, Aner and I went out for a nice, quick waterfront rip the other night.

On the way we ran an into Anthony & Adam…

…on their crotch rockets, one of which I proceeded to break.

We live in a beautiful city and it’s nights like those that makes me happy to live here.

Happy weekend all, and to all a happy weekend!

Well, my Crank Brothers pump seems to have shit the bed, yet again, and although they have some of the best customer / product support I’ve encountered and will probably replace it I still think that it’s about time that I move on. The Crank Bros pumps are actually really good, just not dependable enough for my liking.

After a little asking around it came down to either the Topeak Road Morph or one of the new Lezyne pumps they got in up at the shop – the medium sized Lezyne Pressure Drive won. I’d probably have purchased the small size but it wasn’t in stock and the medium isn’t thaaaat big – about 8″ vs. 6″.

I figured that I’d go with something that had as few plastic parts as possible so the fully CNC machined aluminum construction of the Pressure Drive fit the bill.

It’s got a flexible (Presta / Schrader) hose that stows away inside the handle when not in use which, in testing, I found that I liked a lot – having a hose affixed to the valve stem is significantly more comfortable than the conventional fixed head of most portable hand pumps.

One thing that I’ll miss is the lack of a pressure gauge but given that this particular pump will be used primarily on the road and my floor pump at home has one, I don’t think that I’ll miss it that much. The Pressure Drive packs a max pressure of 120psi and I tend to run my road tires between 100-120 (depending on what I’m using at the time, of course) so if I’m fixing a flat and I just pump til I can’t pump no mo’ it should be just fine!

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I went up to the market at lunch today and met up with my main man Sean who just got back from the 5 Boro Bike Tour in NYC.

“Everything in the Bible is true, we already know that, but the reason people don’t believe is because there aren’t any pictures.” True story.

Happy 30th Birthday to the K DOGG! Comin’ up out tha dogghouse! Ruff! Ruff!

There are two or three lines that Bill drops within this trailer that I really appreciate. They speak strongly to his sense of humility & dedication to his craft. That dedication has always been apparent in his songwriting; but in two short minutes I went from digging a few of his tracks to really starting to appreciate him as an artist and as a person – he’s got a wisdom about him that is really quite magnetic. Can’t wait to see this doc.

Still Bill via Benny Gold

Last Wednesday on my way to see 108 on the East side of town I poked my head in at the Dandyhorse Issue #2 launch party at the Amsterdam Brewery who was also launching their Big Wheel Amber Ale; I didn’t get to try any of because Robbie imposed and enforced a 5 minute yappin’ limit – which for once in my life I abided by.

Andrew and the Toronto Cyclist Union were in full effect with valet bike parking. Thanks, folks.

The Pralex BMX Crew held it down all night. Well, probably, I was only there for a few minutes but I’ll bet they held it down huge!

The issue features great pieces on now retired Toronto frame builder Mike Barry (Mariposa), The Winking Circle, Bike Scavenging and all kinds of useful / interesting bike bits that you’d expect to find such a fine publication.

Let us also not forget two little pieces by yours truly. They are definitely not my best work; I had to submit in the midst of house madness but they are there for you to read, none the less. I thought my author description in this issue was particularly funny…

I do, unfortunately, need to call attention to an interesting editorial choice as Ben is clearly not “sprinting” to the finish – think “Benjameen Motz casually drifts to the Indy finish line and prepares to dismount” would have been more appropriate. Also, Benjameen… haha.

Ahhhh, I’m just bustin’ your chops! Big-ups to A Tran for a sweet photo (as per usual) and congratulations to Tammy, Warren and the entire Dandyhorse crew for another job well done. I’m very proud of what you’ve been able to achieve thus far and am very happy to be a small part of it.

Speaking of dandy horses…

Speaking of ultimate rippers…

Speaking of hot boxes…

Speaking of hot babes and massive amounts of boxes…