The jumping photo is me in 6th grade at a track meet, 1966. In those days 6th graders had track meets...and other sportsy games, with other schools. Do they do that now? My dad took the photo with a Voigtlander Bessa and Kodachrome 64, which is what he always used.
The other photo up there is a guy stealing a bike, or trying to, or trying to steal something in the bike. Copper wire? It's an electric vehicle, so I'm clueless. He uses a U-lock as a hammer. Will shot it, with Pentax ME Super. Presumably he made a citizen's arrest then, and his photo became exhibit A. Do Citizen's Arrest cases ever get tried and get juries?
I crammed too much in this, and it's long. Skip around, skip over. I thought I'd already posted the first half, then realized I hadn't, and so tacked on the Halloween content half at that point, and it just got long. OK...
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In an early Rivendell Reader we had the official instructions for making a Citizen's Arrest. It's really quite simple; as simple as it is rare and risky, in fact. Have any of you successfully conducted a bona fide Citizen's Arrest? Write me, tell me the story, maybe I'll post it here. All details. I wonder what the world record is for making Citzen's Arrests. Is the apostrophe correct? That is a great quiz show question: Is there an apostrophe in Citzen...s Arrest. Assuming there is, there could be a sentence with two:
The Citizen's Arrest's effect on the self-esteem of the individual who properly executes it, is inestimable.
----new topic----
Here's what we have coming down the bicycle pike:
Homers early-November. They're "on the water" as I type this. (tm)
ROSCO BEBE, the bike we designed to be the ne plus ultra (as they used to say in the '60s) of baby-carrying bikes. Fifty of them, priced like dirt (by our standards) because they're designed around CLEM SMITH JR forks that were 2mm off-spec, so we got a deal on them, and are doing this. We don't know the price. We'll try to put together full bike kits, but all u-rilly-need that you can't find at the Five & Dime are some 55 or 58cm Bosco bars. Still, we'll try to source some parts that'll let you pedal bebe in fine, safe, budget style. A cheap single-ring crank with chainring guard...no front der or shifter...leave off the olde Brooks saddle...get the Clem pedals, the SunRace V-brake levers, some "less-than-Deore" V-brakes...Altus rear derailer.
We don't have enough interest yet to go ahead with this. Maybe when we get our samples in and build them up and ride them around with real live babies in 'em, that'll generate more interest. We have 12 so far. We need 25 FIRMS. contactwill@rivbike
It's a frame designed around the kind of baby carrier that mounts behind the handlebar. It's a good place for a baby. I used one of these when Katie was tiny. It was cramped and awkward as all get-out, but she preferred it to rear carriers.
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CHEVIOTS, only 55, 60...sage and the new RBW blue. You've seen it on the Roadini, and we'll have a Boots in it, and ... we're splattering that color around.
SILVER2 shifter. This is the longest ongoingly frustrating but ultimately super worth it project we've ever had, I believe. By mid-November we will have round 2 sample, and a mounting plate for it. I know it's the wrong epoch for this kind of shifter, but if you're reading this, you're wrong for this epoch anyway, and it may be a good fit for you. Shifting isn't just shifting anymore. We're passed that. Shifting is a philosophical shout to a world that doesn't care what you do, as it shouldn't, but like doing so many things that offer idiot-proof perfection or, oppositely, guarantee an endless combination of satisfaction and frustration in which you hope to minimize the frustration and then, ideally, not even harp on or think about the satisfaction, but sometimes for some people or sometimes for anybody it's slightly satisfying to successfully perform a simple task (shifting) that somebody else might not be able to, right off the bat, and as well. Is any of that insane? Insane or not, we all here still, tho to varying degrees, like non-automatic shifters, and Silver and incoming Silver2's are the best of them.
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Our worst-selling handlebar is the Albastache. Drop-bar people don't take it seriously, and non-drop bar people think it's too much like a drop bar. I think it's the bar to ride for anybody who's not ready to go full-Albatross or Billie or Bosco; who has a drop-bar road bike but isn't thrilled with it...but it all depends on the shifters. Albastache bars aren't designed for brifters. The're perfect for bar-end shifters. There is little chance that you won't like them 10x more than your drop bars, as long as you ride bar-end shifters, which are always a good idea with any bar.
Here's a 57cm Roadini set up with Albastache. This is the dreamiest a road bike FOR ME can be:
This has been a demo bike. I've been saying I'm going to buy it for a while. The bars:
MOST road bikes would benefit from these bars. It is really, really hard to not love them.
----- Here's my own HHH:
We might do another small batch of them. We don't ship complete bikes, so you'll have to engage your LBS to do the assembly. It works out. Whole bikes--frame and all the parts from us--run about $4,000. You can buy just the frame, HS, and eccentric from us. Whatever--if you think you want one, let Will know by November 5. Don't just "get on the list" for fun. Contact him if you're like...90 percent, because we can't afford to do this without some strong indication. We can't stick our neck out recklessly, and this would be that...without your assurance. Ultimately, we'd ask you to buy the frame for $1850 and wait half a year or so for it to come in.
The HHH is the best-riding, easiest, most stable, fun, versatile tandem you'll ever ride. I could not be any better. We are extremely proud of it.
will@rivbike.com.
and here's a LINK.
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from our PACIFIC NW JUDGE, who pared it down to a classic, simple, Top Three:
1. St. Louis B. Glowsen
2. Bo Gutso Swinsell
3. Susie B. Longbolts
our MARIN COUNTRY JUDGE's top three, followed by allowable other category winners:
1. Is Best Lugs 'n' Wool
2. Susie B. Longbolts
3. No Slugs Sit Below
RUNNER UP: O, Is Best Low-Slung
AWARD OF MERIT: Lost 'n; Lugless
BEST THAT DIDN'T ACTUALLY USE ALL 14 LETTERS & HAD TO INVERT THE W TO MAKE AN M: Gollum's Nose Bits (a Middle-Earth reference)
MOST DISCONCERTING SIBLING HOBBY: Twins Goose Bulls
MOST CONCERNING EROTIC PRACTICE: So Will Snog Tubes
MOST DESERVING OF BEING IN A HAIKU: Lone Sow But Sits
BEST ALBUM NAME/BEST UNPRODUCED ROBERT ALTMAN FILM: So Long, Lewis Tubs
BEST ALBUM NAME, RUNNERUP: Sue W. Still Bongos
DON'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS BUT REALLY LIKED IT: Blow Less, Sing Out
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Our TOKEN SWEDE/International JUDGE, who also kept it complicated: Susie W. Longbolts Then a superb in-shop exchange in the Sentences category: Saturday guy Ben, hoping to reel in a customer: Is best lugs'n'wool! Customer, not easily duped: Ben, it's slugs’ wool. Later, when staff and customers have all left the scene, Sam, Homer, and Clem makes fun of the newcomer (“Slow tubing loses!”), challenging him to a brutal Shell Ridge race: Now, being Swedish, I must give an honorary Scandinavian mention to what I imagine is the first RBW toddler bike (the Nils) on a loaded touring outing: |
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My top three, in order: 1. Gus bellows “It’s on!” 2. Susie W. Longbolts 3. Nils tows LEGO bus
Check out this. Know the name Ashton Lambie. This creates a condrum here, at least with me. I'm all about UNracing, and here's this Kansas world-record holder who trains, apparently, with a Sackville Grabsack. And he bought a Hail Mary certificate, too (a credit when we were about to pack it in). I cannot not love this man. I cannot not be thrilled about this. He is now my favorite racer by far. -------- Last Halloween was the third in a row where we offered hard-boiled eggs along with the obligatory candy. Only the Mexican kids want them. They know us as Casa de Juevos and now expect it every year, and last year we had to boil up more, so this year we'll start with five dozen, and we can eat them at work if they don't get taken. I'm going to try something different, not for the kids, but for work. I'll hard-boil the eggs --Will-style, for 7 minutes, then dump in ice water so they're easy to peel--then peel and soak in TJ's $4 organic merlot. Mostly for the color, but I bet the guys at work like 'em. ----- You're all familiar with the famous Jack Sprat. Don't ask me how, you know how those things go, but I came upon this disturbing thing on YouTube" I'm sooo sorry, but the nice lady who's reading it goofs up at 0:42, stanza 2, line five, last word. I can't get beyond that. I think it should be re-done. I want to record it myself, for the famous YouTube. Maybe Roman can figure out how to do that. It won't be fancy, but it'll be right. ----- I was going thru scans of old (early 2000s) photos of fam and friends on S24Os (sub-24-Hour bike trips)--overnight campouts gotten to happen by the pedal-bike. Here are some, showing a range of photographic results. All were taken with the same camera, a Cosina Voigtlander rangefinder, with a 25mm lens:
My now-24 year old daughter eating spaghetti, which at some level turns my stomach in knots, but on the other hand, she still seems healthy. She was 13 here, and that's the backyard. Note the groovy rope-ladder I built for her and her sister. It goes from an olive to an elm.
This is friend Sean on an S24O. That's Daniel's prototype Hunqapillar, which Daniel later rode the whole 2,700 miles of the Great Divide. I think I has ISO 3200 film in the camera and shot it at 400. I'm not exactly sure. Any ideas? Another from the same trip, different roll, I think:
I was bummed when I saw these in 2007, but I kind of like them now. There's no BIKE in the photo, but there are tents, and it was a bike campout.
I think I've shown these bat pix befoe. Sorry if you're sick of them. Shot with the same camera, color film, and a flash. Photographing bats isn't as hard as yould think. Being where there are bats is step one. Then shine a flashlight in the air to attract bugs, which the bats go after, and after a while you get a feel for their flight patterns and often-ness. Then use a wide angle lens and click off a flashed photo when you see one out of the corner of your eye coming toward the bugs.
This is not a bad Halloween photograph. That's a real bat with too much flash or whatever, but who cares? -
A customer came by and wanted to know if we had fresh gum hoods for brake levers. He kept his bike outside for 10 years, and as I remember it, he lived in Arizona at the time. ---
It's a nice bike. Things are hard, it's not that easy to get it back, and at the price it would cost we'd have a large, non-purchasing cheering section for it, I think. -------- ALL4NOW!
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Here's a bike we no longer make. Nice decals and a wondeful bike. The Cheviot is as good.