Dec 19 long but mostly pictures, some HHH info, some Bebbe
A couple came by last Saturday, a cool and almost drizzly day, to ride my HHH tandem (I long for the day when I can write just HHH and have it be known that it's our tandem, but I don't think that's yet) up the 6.5-mile, 2,000 foot road climb to the Junction, a normal turnaround spot on Mt. Diablo.
He has Luna sandals. He used to wear Bedrock (brand) sandals, which are pretty popular around here with riders, for road or trail. He got them before Manny did, but the last time I saw him and he had on Bedrocks, I said, "Oh, just like Manny," and he protested and said he had them first, and everybody thinks he's copying Manny. He and Manny are good friends. Everybody is Manny's good friend, but now he (well, Braxton) is in Luna sandals.
They cost about $100, I don't own any and I don't know anybody there and am not endorsing any particular brand, but I absolutely endorse the wearing of sandals while pedaling, although this was a day for sox, too. I have no idea what her shoes are, but they worked on the bike. She came out here planning to ride. She didn't just show up with her slim fancies and get snookered into riding, and what that goes to show you is anybody's guess. My wife would be embarrassed by that sentence.
I ride in Teva Hurricanes, which don't require bare feet or toed sox. They're made faraway and cost cheap, but I've been wearing them since before sandals went upscale, and I have five pair (I splurged several years ago when I found them for $19).
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Through some kind of channels and good intent we did this ad a few years in Harpers. It's still all true, but the bikes now start at $1,650.
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Bob Dylan has his own deep dark liquor now. Apparently he had a lot of input, so it's not any old bourbon (in this case) with his endorsement. I don't drink alcohol except only barely -- fewer than 2 quarts of any kind in my life, I think, and I have not acquired a taste for the nasty stuff, but I really like the bottles, decorated with Bob Dylan's metal sculpture, so I got some bottles and gave them away with the assurance that if the recipients weren't going to keep the bottles, they'd give the empties back to me. We may keep one around here so we can all try it, and then if somebody wants it, I still want the bottle back. It's a beautiful bottle, don't you think?
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One of the big three bike makers has a $12,500 motorebike. I think that's how I'm going to spell it from now on. I bet it's a good one, but you could buy a Homer, a Clem, a Boots, and still have $1,600 left over for a used Olympus OM-1 AND a Hasselblad with a lens, for that. And come on.
Here's how I carry them. Model is Roman, but camera is mine. He has one just like it:
Roman in his Team Issue UPS vest. A few of the guys here have them. There's a club going on, I think. I pay the bills, I don't have a vest. Anyway, the camera doesn't sway or bounce or bug me at all. Closeup of the strapping, using John's Irish Strap and an elastic webbing:
And for smaller cameras, I have this going on. An irish strap and one to three smallish cameras, point-and-shoot size or rangefinders:
Somebody asked late today, so I just added these.
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I was looking at Vespas, but I like the idea of them more than anything else. Kind of like whiskey in that regard. I couldn't imagine one single situation in which I'd not rather pedal. I might feel the same or even better about electric motor bikes if they weren't being billed as bicycles, but since they are I don't. I'm not against them, I just they're no more bicycles than keyboards are pianos. They are two-wheeled vehicles that have a motor and don't require pedaling. That doesn't make them bad in any sense, but it also doesn't make them bicycles in any sense.
Unless you go with "bi" referring to two wheels, and "cycle" having something to do, I'm guessing, with wheels going round and round in a cycle, but if that's your argument, then a Harley is a bicycle and a Lexus is a quadracycle.
Can we just protect "bicycle"? You'll be thinking, "a motorcycle is often called a 'bike,' and I don't hear you squawking about that." Yes, true, but I think that all happened during the early 20th century bicycle-fallow decades, when bicycles faded away into almost nothingness. There was that opening. The opening has been closed since at least 1970. Let them have their own name. I nominate eMotorbike, which attached "motor" to "bike," and is another way of saying "electric motorcycle," which is pretty accurate, and again--not bad, just not a BICYCLE.
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IN A WEEK we'll have the sample Rosco Baby bikes. Oh, I can't wait. We need to get a child seat, thanks for reminding.
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Yesterday before it rained Dan and I went out riding. I had my OM-1 and got some pix with it, but I took these of Dan with his phone. They're better than I'd have gotten with a camera-camera---or as good, and more assured---but that's not the point, is it? Always?
He's on a Boots prototype. We should have the second round of them in a month. When you deal with Taiwan, if something doesn't happen in January, it may happen in March, but won't happen in February, because they take 2-3 weeks for Chinese New Year, and there's a low-energy transition ramp before and after it, anyway.
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Among non-ornithologists it is fairly common to confuse barn owls and snowy owls. Like if you go up to a stranger and say, "snowy owl," he or she may imagine a barn owl before or after the "huh?" Barn owls are the ones that look like weird, done-up royalty, and snowies are the cute ones that are always laughing or yawning.
Which...
would you rather have staring at you from a branch of a tree as you sit on a picnic bench somewhere eating fun food?
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Are you old enough to remember those 5/6 combo allens? I know you're thinking, how old do you have to BE? At least 42. We're getting them again. I couldn't find them, so we're having them made. We're going to sell them with rare earth magnets, so you can stick them to your non-carbon, non-aluminum, non-titanium, non-stainless frame, like this:
Now, imagine that with a 6mm hex on the other end. You'd be the envy of the bike path.
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This is an ongoing brainworm with me. You can buy Allen wrenches that aren't hexes, that are box-end and open-enders...and you can buy Channel Locks that aren't slip-jaw pliers. We have two, this is one. "Hand me those Channel Locks, will you?" And you get these. Or you wanted these and got nothing or the other. Small thing, but wrong thing. A small wrong thing. It's "line extension" in marketing terms. It's when a company thinks its name is more valuable than its stuff, it puts it on everything else to help sell it. They're all tools, yes, but still. Small thing, big brainworm.
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The geometry thing I alluded to a few BLAHGs ago was -- listen, I don't want to tease you or get you all hangin' on; this is a loose-goose forum that I write when I need a break from something tedious or rather important that requires a lot of attention. I'm not trying to waste your time with it, either. It's has to do with the effect of convergent or divergent head and seat tube angles, and the effect of saddle and stem heights on like, how much you have to learn or reach to the handlebar, and then how much that should be or is accounted for in the design of the frame and the pick of of the stem and handlebar. That's what it "has to do with."
There's a tendency to think there must be a formula, and that every rider has a narrow optimum comfort-efficiency target (in this regard), and the nature of this whole thing tends to bring those types out and get 'em frettin', and I am kind of of the same way of thinking (all of those "of's" are correct enough), and I'm not wound up about it at all, BECAUSE: There is a huge comfort target when the bars are high enough, and there is tons of flexibility ("are tons of flexibility"?) in the selection of bars and stems. That doesn't mean it's unimportant, it just means that the world is in your favor and you're offering up a large-sized fuzzy bullseye, so you can legitimately be happy about that.
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OK, an example: If the seat tube angle is steeper than the head tube angle (say, 72 degrees and 71 degrees respectively), then they're converging, and that means as you jack up the handlebars and raise the saddle, they're headed toward each other, and if they do that, a case could be made for lengthening the stem or using a saddle/post combo that lets you slide the seat back.
There is more, deeper analysis of it than that, but that is enough for now. If this topic bores you, sorry but not too much, because this probably isn't your first BLAHGdeo. If it intrigues you, then go to sleep thinking about it, and it's kind of fun.
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Lately I've been going to sleep thinking about ideal camera/lens/filter/film combinations for some photos we need to get soon...and it includes WHICH TRAIL and exactly WHERE on it and in what lighting conditions would be best? I usually visualize a Hasselblad with a Bay 50 80mm lens with a yellow filter and a waist-level finder and HP5 film, but then I think maybe that'll be too crisp, and shooting 35mm wide and cropping would look grittier, and if were done right and came out right, why not go that easier way? Then I think of a Hasselblad SW903 I have that I rarely use and think that would be good. I could shoot with it, crop a lot, and get all the groovy crappiness that happens with film that's pushed and cropped and tends to nice contrast and grain to begin with. Then I think, "But really, Roman and Will should shoot these photos," and then i wonder when they'll get around to it, because I'd like to shoot them mainly on the Pine Truck Fire Road on Mt. Tamalpais, and they've never been there, and I want to be there because it's fun and I want to have some input without micromanaging everything, but when can we all get it together and go?
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There is no fun in efficiency. Efficiency is for work, not play, and this catalog thing is a combo. It'll be good goofy fun with stuff about the Boots and good information and photos that didn't come about easy.
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Robert's Garden. It's mostly aloe and rosemary, with a redwood bark roof and fences made from pallet scrap and wood leftovers.
That picture of Will, here's a closeup. Have I already shown it? Am I going insane?
I think it's a case of I meant to, but didn't. Roman took this of Will. I don't think he likes it as much as I do. I think he likes, it, just not as much. I don't think it's possible to like it any more than I do, and his own humility will limit how much he can like it, but since I didn't take it, I don't have that limitation. It's printed on aluminum. It looks like a tintype but isn't. A mix of high and low tech, but one of my favorite photos. It's outside all the time, but I don't think anybody will steal it.
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The ROSCO BEBBE frame samples...should be any day now. We'll build them soon and try them out with a simulated child, and then Dave will try one with Hank, a real one. I hope they work as well in real life as they do in my head. I think, to appreciate the ROSCO design, it helps to have ridden a normal bike with a behind-the-bars baby.
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We have some other projects, but too early to say much about.
The HHH round 3 seems to be happening, but we'll have the answer for sure on Jan 5, when all $1,000 deposits are due. We don't plan to stock many. Half a dozen? But if you buy from stock, the frame price jumps from $1,875 to $2,000.
The RIVFORUM has already raised enough money for one frame, for an organization for blind riders. When that happens, we kick in all the parts to make it a whole bike, but then somebody still has to build it. If all this HHH/Tandem/Blind rider stuff is new to you, email me or Will, or look at older posts, or on our site. Basically, we talk about it all the time, but don't have all of the latest info at our fingertips. Don't feel out of the loop or too late. In a nutshell:
We are doing another run of our tandem, called the HubuHubbuH and abbreviate HHH. It's a 27.5 fat tire bike, fit sup to 2.5-inch tires or a bit more. Well braced, laterally rigid, three sizes, and the rear in all sizes fits 9-year olds and bigger. Frames on presale are $1,875, and we need $1,000 of it by Jan 5. You'll wait at least 7 months for the frame, could be more. We can supply all the parts, or you can buy them elsewhere. If we supply them, expect a whole bikesworth + frame to cost about $4,200. We will assemble only bikes to be picked up here, but many shops can assemble the bike for you, and we can offer then or you some minor tips (like the length of the timing chains, for instance: 150 links for the M and S, 152L for the L...assuming 38t timing chainrings. Etc.
One will be orange, the other, not sure. No customizing. Size by captain's sizing, and PBH up to 88 can fit a S; 88 to 97 can go M; taller, a L.
more? will@rivbike.com
OK!
Grant