little help from her friends

since losing her road bike in a pink-slip street race in south bend, the girl has been riding on my most righteous back-up bike. a killer ride, to be sure, but a wee bit too big for her. so with her home for a few weeks we endeavored to remedy the situation. bein' a struggling college student and all, resources were limited. enter the amazingly cool world of cyclist buddies !! with a series of riding friends each piling on to help, this h'yar ride took shape. wahat's more amazing still is that my bike-snobism has rubbed off on the child, and so she has a certain bar that has to be met. luckily, said cycling buddies are pretty much as big a snobs as either of us, so no problem there !!

so, with help from russell, rick, marty out at prairie peddaler, singular cycles, dallas fowler at trikes2bikes, of course MOM, and a few more the girl is back ripping in style. those hoosierswill not know what hit em when she gets back to south bend. her vinatage ibis she rocks on the trails made them weep over their lame ass rides, and this bitchin steed will do the same. killer bare-knuckle no-nonsense wheels, rival parts doing the work, solid remaining bits to just last and work with blue-collar aplomb, and to tie it all together a frame older than the child, triple butted lugged steel made in nippon like a samurai sword and quite probably the best frame specialized ever made - every bit as good as all but the most boutique level frames made today.

thanx to all !!

half way to the wrong side of the grass

i turned 50 this week. i looked up a few things that were going on the year i was born.

1. the flintstones premiered
2. ben hur was a hot movie
3. the aluminum can was invented
4. cassius clay ( not yet muhammed ali ) won his first pro fight
5. gas was a quarter a gallon, and a brand new mustang was 2300 bux.
6. the foolish pic above passed for olympic-level winter sport

pardon me, while i go heat up a bowl of stewed prunes and ovaltine.

week at camp calls for -

lake owen drive every morning. i can't get away to ride camba singletrack, but this is pretty sweet.

if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin' !!

i have been enjoying the big story about cancellara and his supposed electric motor, boosting him to victory. personally - i would love for the story to be true. take bike racin's cheating and get it out of the classless and tacky PED arena, and move it up alongside motorsports; the source of the title quote for this entry ( famed tuner and notorious cheater smokey yunick is source ). i mean, let's see some more creativity in our cheating !! make it something to be proud of - for example, f-landis' famous testoterone-patch-on-the-XXX has got to be the ultimate low-rent cheat in history. not because he cheated, but because of the horridly embarrassing way he did it.

my all-time favorite cheat, tho, was the kid ( OK, his dad . . . ) in the soapbox derby car back in '73. he had a wicked strong electromagnet in the nosepiece of his car, and a switch hidden in the roll-bar. he would switch it on, and when the metal plate holding the car at the start line would fall away, the car would get a little pull from the magnet ( !!! ). awesome !!! so, so wrong, on so many levels - you just have to love it. they only caught him because as the battery wore down, his times and starts became noticably slower.

so, please cancellara - let this business of you having an electric motor hidden on your bike be true. if people are racing, somebody's gonna be cheating - cycling NEEDS a good cheatin' story like the soapbox kid, or one of smokey yunicks legendary yarns. for god's sake, no more embarrassing stories about placing sticky medicinal patches on one's XXXX.