It has its own bottlecap and is the most innovative, unusual, opposite-of-market-driven, anti-slick bicycle shift lever of all time and will be forever. It looks at first like a funky chuckler, like a "boy, how far we've come" kind of juxtaposition deal, but that's missing all there is about it. It's made for bikes in poorer countries that need to be able to make their own shifters, and it's been around since 2004. I remember reading about it then. It made the news in the same kind of way that somebody who's 108 years old and still drinking whiskey makes the news. It's a feel-good story of a product you don't have room for in your life or on your bike, but it's a lot more than a feel-good story.
Onestreet.org is a wonderful company. The woman who started it, Sue Knapp, is admirable, incredible, too good for the times, and everything she values is something I value too, so of course I like her. We've emailed and spoken on the phone maybe four times. We sent her $300 and she sent us this shifter. She has instructions on how to make this, how to even cast the lever out of scrap aluminum. It has to something faraway natives can do.
In the next BLAHG we'll tell more about it. We'll have it on a bike, we all will have ridden and shifted it. That's all for now, but there are links to ONESTREET or links FROM ONESTREET later on in this BLAHG. Here's one to the main ONESTREET site.
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Gear news. I know there's not much of that here lately, but a lot of things are going on, all really slowly.
Our rear derailer project is millimetering along. I've seen videos of a plastic 3D-printed and assembled derailer moving in and out. There's a 20 percent chance of a real one within two years. It's the bikey thing I care MOST about, and we have a good guy on it, but things take time.
We have a pedal thing going on, an add-on to the Grip Monarch pedal, something that'll make it work for Shaq and won't make it worse for anybody, just kind of a fun thing.
Here's the machine or mold that will make the piece.
Here's the thing. It's the blue. part. Look for these within two years. Everything takes forever.
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Here's a rack. I think we've mentioned this before. Within a year:
Will has a prototype on his bike, and it seems PERFECT for its intended use. It'll be tig'd and stainless.
HOBSON-ZINGO bike tools: We have samples, but COVID, yes, has slowed this down by many months. Just want to say it's still ON.
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Will wore out the tab-grinder for the SilverShifter stop. If you don't know what that is, it's OK. When you mount the Silver2 shifter as a thumby, you have to limit its forward travel just a hair, and to do that you need a modified washer, and we've been doing the modifications. Here's more on that:
https://vimeo.com/556364675/7aa21866da
We're trying to get these 3D printed. Quotes for that vary immensely. We just want them to fit, and we'll make sure before we order production quantities.
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Here's something bikey and techy all in one. It is no skin of our noses, and I'm onto other matters already. I wonder if somebody will think This is not your grandfather's Colnago.
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You all know who Naomi Osaka is, right? Top woman tennis player in the world, half-Japanese, half-Black (Haitian), 23 years old, born in Japan, lives in California. Here's her wikipedia stuff.
I think she should quit tennis. Play it for fun and let her friends win sometimes. She's got enough money to buy Rivendell probably a hundred times over, apparently. Give Ye Olde Tennis Groupe Internationale her middle finger and just go. She doesn't need them, they need her, but they don't care about her.
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For the first time in 26 years we have a decent way to hold up a lot of bikes.
Now, rather than a drag, it is pleasant to put away a bike, and the showroom is easier to navigate. I'm getting one for home, and if you have a few bikes and you're always leaning or kickstanding them wherever but you want a little more order in your life, ten thumbs up for these bad boyz:
They have prefab racks, too. They're all MUSA, all good (we have an outside pre-made rack...but if you're can do First Grade Level carpentry (meaning just beyond kindergarten, not, like "top class" stuff), you should get these BYO--Build Your Own--racks. For three bikes, you need two 2x4s of 41 to 43 inches each Get two four-footers and cut as you like.
Unless you have 3"+ tires, get the MEDIUM slots. If you have one bike, get the basic slot. If you hav three bikes, get two basic MEDIUMS and a MEDIUM with a riser. It's all easy.
Here's one in use with Sergio's Appaloosa.
Here's one end:
Here's the hoop end that the wheel goes in:
Here's what it looks like all together and no wheel in it:
And there you go. Each hoop costs about $40, so it's $120 for three. Two-by-fours are cheap, vary a lot so I won't quote, but basically, you can't afford eight two-by-fours, there's no shame, no nothing, but they're the cheapest part of this rack, so...
The hardware comes with it, but not the tools. Here's what you need:
OK, enough rack stuff, but these are really good and cheap and there's no plastic anywhere. You could take them apart and reconfigure them. Easy and good.
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Is THIS still a bicycle? I know it has three wheels, but "bicycle" in the same sense that a tricycle is a bicycle? No doubt it can help those who are physically challenged enjoy the outdoors. Is that enough? Imagine the scenarios when these become popular and land-managers or whatever they are continue to buckle under "popularity." Do you really believe that the big bike makers won't come out with trikes like this? If the world were coming to an end in a year and I still cared about fun, I'd get one and ride it wherever. It's as Mad Max as I'd go. I DO understand that they have positive uses, too. Just like cars and snowmobiles and so on. Bikes that don't have electric motors are going to be the exception in five years, but we'll stick with "the hard kind."
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Will sent me this video about scissors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK4AWtTV3h4
He seemed to have mixed feelings about them, and so do I. All the admiration of course, but they can't or shouldn't be one of those things that rich or indulgent people buy to brag about but never use. Or let's say you already have some Wiss or Fiskars or KitchenAid scissors that work perfectly well and you can't exactly remember the last time you used them. Then you get these and spare them by using your ordinary scissors, which are already good enough; or you don't use them because you're afraid your local scissors sharpener guy is going to ruin them if they ever need resharpening. Most people have never. had scissors resharpened, I THINK. I have, and the guy did OK on them.
This was the next video in line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD2XGwmRJi8
It's all a little bit kind of too much, but way to go, guys.
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I am not a HUGE fan of bike helmets, so sorry, I know this is bumming to many of you...but I really like this one. I like the shape. I don't own one, but I'd wear it in town now and then if I did:
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I used to shoot color film. This was my then 8-year old daughter, which means it was from 2002. The sunglasses were an impulse purchase at the Dollar store in West Bend, Oregon.
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In our neck of the woods, goats provide fire control:
I go nuts for goats. I love the cheese, the yogurt, the milk...and it's not just coincidental that we have soap made from goat's milk. It also has walnut shells. It's like Lava soap. It doesn't work as fast as Super Soap, but fits places that won't and can be more convenient.
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Here's a neat quote:
"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."
It applies to bicycles, life, and what else is there?
IF you like it...does it make it any better or worse that....
PENCIL
Angela Davis said it?
If all you can say about Angela Davis begins something along the lines of, "All I know is that...." then you know the wrong stuff. I am applying the, "I am no longer accepting..." stuff to bicycle stuff. I want Rivendell to be independent of manufacturers who make only disc brake hubs, who quit making their best designs, who follow the ones who follow trends, who evaluate bicycles and bicycle parts and stuff by sales figures, who are in the business for the sake of business, who commodify bicycles and turn their bicycle business into a numbers game and call it a success, who pay famous people to ride their stuff, who use the bicycle to trounce their friends and strangers on friendly rides, who don't bother riding unless the ride is epic and advertised on social media, who use the trails as a personal gym and wear advertisements on their clothing when they ride in the woods...etc. The Angela Davis quote strengthens my resolve. She said it about more important issues than bicycles, I get that, and we here and I me will do what we can here and there about those things, too. But at some level, maybe a low level, it affects our bicycles, too. I don't know how long we'll be here. We're doing well, but in a month I'll be 67. I wish I were 28. I feel 28 a lot of the time, but I'm not in awe of things the way I was then. I don't assume that everybody I meet is smarter or knows more or has more experience than I do, anymore. I know some people do, I have my own list of nearly heroes, I certainly know who has influenced me and helped and taught me. Feel like I'm on top of a tiny hill and three-quarters of the way up a bigger hill, and near the bottom of a giant mountain, still. What I want is to create a few more bits of important bicycle hardware, and I want the RoadUno to come out as good as we imagine it. I don't want to waste any Rivendell employee's time. I want them all to do more and more here and be as associated with Rivendell as I am, and I want and hope they can dig in their heels on their own terms here, which means being able to see fifteen years down the road with a vision or something of where the bike market will be and where we'll be, and I want them to feel, I hope that they feel strong and confident and in control, so we can keep making bikes that are safe and comfortable and long-lasting and recyclable, with slender tubes painted in nice colors and with nice joint details.
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You may have heard about this by now. Holy good god.
PENCIL
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The Appaloosa will be available in a week and a half or so. Follow the email updates (and if you are reading this I assume you already read those updates) to find out how and when.
Fifty dollars from each frame will go to the Oglala Lakota Children's Justice Center on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. The Lakota tribe (they don't go by Sioux, but that's what most people call them) was at the heart of the Greasy Grass Battle (aka Battle of the Little Big Horn, or Custer's Last Stand) in 1876, and were re-attack and nearly obliterated a year later, and then in 1890 at ye olde Wounded Knee creek, were massacred with mini-cannons called Hotchkiss guns, and that was the last of the "great" Indian wars of the previous 200 years. It's the poorest reservation, with the highest rates of all the bad things that all reservation people suffer. Alcohol, drug abuse, unemployment, domestic violence, and child sexual abuse. Sorry to be a downer, but the point is, we're trying to raise money for them, and to make it easy for you to help them, too.
This is cut-and-pasted from the last BLAHG:
We are raising the price of the Appaloosa frame $50 and donating that to the Oglala Lakota Children's Justice Center.
DONATE $20 TO $200 BETWEEN NOW AND JULY 1, AND WE'LL CREDIT YOUR ACCOUNT FOR HALF THAT. IF YOU'RE REALLY RICH AND FEEL LIKE DONATING $1,000, THAT'S GREAT, BUT WE'RE TOPPING OUT, CREDITWISE, AT $100. SEND PROOF OF YOUR DONATION (A SCREENSHOT OF YOUR RECEIPT OR SOMETHING) TO
info@rivbike.com
Don't send it to me. I'll see them all, but James gets these and he's more organized than I am. In the subject, put
PINE and then YOUR NAME
Like: PINE Lenny Kingsford
Please send the screenshot from the email address you use to shop with us - or tell us which email you use. You must have an account to get credit.
These are the Native Americans that were slaughtered in 1890 at the battle at Wounded Knee—on their reservation. We have already donated $2,200 donated as a company, but we'll match half of your donations, too. It's not that complicated, it'll go like this:
You give $20 and email us the proof with PINE YOUR NAME.
We credit you $10...but give us till June 15 to do that. We won't lose track.
We'll ALSO send the reservation $10 if you give $20, OR $25 if you give $50. But shoot for $20.
So your $20 donation will give the reservation $30, and you get $10 Rivcredit.
If history can predict the future, I'll get at least three emails saying YOU never PERSONALLY hurt a Native American, so why should you? Or recommending some other group we should be supporting instead. Please no, we're just plugging away, trying not to hurt anybody.
WE HAVE NOT BEEN DIVERTED OR DILUTED. WE ARE DIVERSIFYING.
Here's the link again:
Oglala Lakota Children's Justice Center.
PENCIL
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Simpletons like to sum up complicated stuff in a single sentence, but it can't always be done. I am not anti-helmet. I'm definitely anti-helmet requirements and even laws, and I have my doubts about their positive effects, but so do people in Bosnia.
But here's another helmet I like:
https://nutcasehelmets.com/collections/adult/products/hi-viz-solid-matte-w-mips
This is an interesting page with lots of interesting stuff on helmets,
I know nobody likes to read about helmets. I don't love writing about them, either. Not against them, but if you're gonna wear one, make it fun.
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I've always liked Groundhog Day (the movie, not the holiday, which I've always hated). While looking up something else, these popped up"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkYDS-aKp5U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob05LOuaxMU
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I want to be able to suggest something to some of you, a food that you might not have tried and might like a lot...without being accused, as I have been, with ramming yet another wacky thing down throats. We're all just people here, right? And we can handle this? I get suggestions all the time. This is one back.
This related. I eat extremely low-carb. I wrote this book about it, and I'm not trying to sell it to you now, but it is a good book, and if you're fatter than you want to be and think that riding more more will make you lose weight, and then you do that and all you get is hungrier and more desperate, then really, it's a matter of cutting back like way back on carbohydrates, and if you think you need them for energy on a bike ride, well you might if you've trained your body to burn only sugar, which is normal, but you won't when you flip the switch to fat, which is what you HOPE to burn off when you exercise, anyway. We all want that. But the thing is, when you have fat on your body, you can't access it as fuel if you also supply your body with sugar. Your body reads the sugar as poison (this is a simplification, good enough for here), and it preferentially burns up the sugar rather than the stored fat, because the sugar will kill you (as in death by diabetes), and also as a way to store energy for when you're starving. Your body still thinks you're roaming the earth and frequently going for days without food, so it has evolved to be a magnificent storer-o'-fat. WANTING to burn up the fat doesn't make that happen. When you carb-up and go for a ride, you're going to burn surgar, not fat. You'll burn the food you just ate. To burn your fat, you have to drain the sugar, and that's kind of what EAT BACON DON'T JOG is about. More details in the book.
I have self-promoted this book way less than the publisher would like, and they don't mention that to me, I'm under no pressure to do it, and as you know, I don't do it much. But it is a good book, I've heard from at least fifty customers who've lost 40 to 100lbs not FROM reading the book, but AFTER reading it and sort of going along with it.
But this is all a long lead-in to....get some of these:
They're super low in sugar and are really good. Heat them in a microwave or whatever--a little if you want them soft, or more if you want like a big crispy chip. My home microwave takes 1:30 to bring them to the crispiness that the work microvave does in 3:00. I buy these six pax for $9.00. If your local place doesn't have them (mine does, but it's not a huge chain), you can get them online. They're not bad.
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