Snuffing the Rooster

Scott just sold Chase his demon possessed bike named "the Rooster". This damn bike tried to kill Scott on several different occasions, I'm not going to get into all that here, but this fucker was cursed from the get. Here's the low down on the bike itself: It's a lugged steel Trek 400 frame, Cane Creek 1" threadless headset, Ultegra cranks with the external bearing bottom bracket. Shimano Deore rear derailer, (I'm not speaking french) and a front derailer I can't quite make out. The Fork is a 1" carbon fork, not sure of the make or model, but it's nice and light. It's actually the same fork Scott gave me to replace my bent steel fork when I wrecked into a park bench on the .83 Thanksgiving ride. Scott, being the handsome, and all around wonderful guy that he is, threw in a Profile Designs bullhorn bar. Considering the fact that the rooster is obviously cursed, Chase and I decided there's no way in hell he should convert that thing to a fixed gear, that being said we're building an awesome geared bike. We also decided that white bikes are bad luck, (i.e. Ghost Bikes) so we went ahead and took everything off the frame and began the process of stripping the paint. Neither of us had ever done this before, and after a few hours of research, it seems relatively simple. So far we've applied one coat of paint stripper and scraped and scrubbed the first few layers of paint away. Some parts had better luck than others, probably due to a more generous coat of the paint stripper. Hopefully in the next day or so we can have the thing down to the bare steel and start sanding/priming it. As for now the color scheme is kind of a secret, mainly because it's still kind of up in the air. But it's looking like it'll be a light, sky blue, with primer while lugs and a thousand pounds of awesome. I kinda think we should let a little of the rooster's original trek USA white roots shine through. Updates will continue...

Holy Shit, it's been a while

Not a totally worthy excuse, but moving has been a bunch of pain in the ass. We're all set in our new place, and we're prolly gonna have some sort of stupid party soon. I think we're going to register for gifts at Macy's, so start saving your moneys. We've had a few Smashed Up Sunday rides, and I destroyed my fork wrecking into a park bench on the Thanksgiving pointy3 ride. Which totally confirms any speculation that, yes, bikes are haaaard. We had a fun ride the Sunday before however. Justin is back! Ran down to SODO and hit up Hooverville, Myrtle Edwards for some stupid trackstands on the stupid rockpile, Shorty's and Mamas in Belltown, etc. Check out the Flikr shit here

Let's do This

Come on people, get out there and let's do this. Please.

Slow/Smashed up Sunday

Justin showed up at the King Cobra prefunk, followed by Cody and Larabee. Since it was just the three of us we decided to go hijack/join Slow Sunday. We sorta half decided we wanted to go to georgetown via the stadium to drop a few "hey ladies" on the way. Ro showed up for a bit along with Silly Scott, Kav, Ryan, Sylvie, Chris Cotie, and Ben Fitz. We cruised down Pine to second, then whatever that new path is called by the stadiums. Sadly there were no ladies to accost. Fun paceline sprint up the bridge on airport way to some damn bar I can't remember the name of. Pool, pinball, beer, tequila, and Ken showed up to chill. Then we decided to head up to Shorty's in Belltown to meet up with Aiden, Rogelio, and Nova. It was a prety wet ride through Georgetown and SODO, but a kick ass sprint down third through downtown following the 'Hawks game. Scott, Chris, and I decided the hell with waiting and made our way to shorty's blowing red lights, and weaving thru traffic. I apologize for ever calling Scott a gentleman cyclist. Kat met up at shorty's and Kav, Nova, Rogelio, Yayo, and I went up to Mamma's for mexican food. We followed that up with a stroll up to the 5 Point for more drinking. Fucking Key Lime Ryan was tring to figure out where we were, and I wasn't being very helpful. My response texts included some gems, such as "mamma's in belltown" after Ryan asked where we were headed:"still mamma's in beltown, not sure". He thought I was calling myself mamma, not refering to the Mexican joint. All in all a pretty damn fun Sunday on Bikes, and barstools. Vote tomorrow you apathetic fucks.

Bring it bitches

Yet another Sunday looms ahead of us, this one should be pretty good. Unless everyone is too partied out from the Messquerade. 11 am, King Cobra, and bring your drinking hats.

Priorities

Bicycles have taken a back seat, the world is changing. I'm afraid of what will happen on Tuesday. Yes we can hold our future in our hands, yes we can make a better world for our children, yes, as a country, we can make the right decision.. Just get out and place your vote. We can make a change Si se puede!

The triumphant return of smashed up sunday!

It's official, smashed up sunday is back. After riding with the slow sunday crew for a few months a few of us would like something a little more fast paced and exciting. Nothing against slow sunday at all, the pace is just gotten to be a bit to slooooooow. I've never had a bad time riding with those guys, and slow sunday is a great way of getting people who are intimidated joining a large group ride, we just want to drink beer and ride a bit faster and crash a bit harder. Heres the info: Meet up at 10 am sunday at King Cobra (Between Broadway and 10th on E Pike), we will be there drinking beer and watching football and discussing routes. We'll probably head out after the morning games are over, unless we drink to much or something stupid(not likely of really happening though) Last night, after slow sunday Cody, Chase, and Larabee met up with Kat and I at the 5 points for a drink. After some tequila and beer we cruised over to Seattle Center and did some laps around the Ghettodrome fountain, and a few games of foot down, and several "hey ladies... feel like partyin?" Then rode up to Cafe Metropolitain because Chase was called into work. I stayed there with Chase and closed the bar with him and then raced back down Denny to the 5 Points again for some icky dinner. It was super awesome.

Bike Piles and Farewells

What is it about bike piles we find so enthralling? Maybe the simple act of restraining a pile of metal with various U Locks and cables is appealing. I think it simply looks cool. This photo was snapped by a charming and beautiful young lady named Marin outside the Cha Cha the other night. I think this was one of Ali's last nights in town, it's kind of a blur. I'm going to miss locking up to that damn Peugeot, a lot of fucked up shit happened while riding with that beast. In fact most of the funnier stuff had to do with Chase's bike. Ali towing Chase with a U Lock up from downtown while I push him from behind, Chase riding on Ali's Bars from the Monk to the Cha Cha while I push Chase's bike with a flat tire, etc. Thanks for riding bikes with us Ali, give em hell in the Bay, and get a San Francisco Chainwhip franchise going. Ride Bikes!

Second slowest sunday

My triumphant return to the Slow Sunday ride after a one week hiatus had to be the second shortest ride ever. Second only to the Scott Gamble Film Festival ride (4 miles total) Here's the stats: Ruby's, Finn McCool's, Big Time, Recycled Cycles, Brauer's,

Saturday night's suit looks just as sexy on sunday

A lot more drinking than riding
(Photos hijacked from Black Scott... thanks Scott)

They finally did it, they killed my fucking bike

Riding to work the other day I noticed a weird wobble in my frame when I took a hand off to signal. I thought perhaps a wheel had gone out of true, but nope, my seat stay on the drive side snapped at the seat tube. I'm sure the frame may be able to be welded, but there is a ton of rust that Tiny rattle canned over. I guess it's time time to grow up and buy a new frame.

Throwing Money at the problem.

I went down to Olympia and picked up a KHS Flite 1oo frame this morning and went about building it up. I ran into a couple minor issues, first the seat tube is too wide for my current seatpost, and second my long-reach brake calipers are far too long for the fork that's designed to fit a 700c wheel. Other than that everything appears to be a go.

No idea why the fuck I'm doing this

Guys, what we did last night was not cool. We owe someone an apology. Yes, stupid shit often happens on Capitol Hill. I had seen running punks trying to ram hapless cyclists with their body on many occasions. But I had never seen a hipster try to ram six ill-tempered cyclists with his body before. I thought colliding against a 25 lbs steel frame would be punishment enough for him. But not all of us thought so. The dude was already writhing on the ground in pain after the impact, but may he deserved the beating he got when B started pounding him on the chest with his twisted up bike frame. B was probably just trying to straighten out his frame. It didn't seem excessive when J slapped the dude's girlfriend in the face to get her to stop screaming. She was out of control, after all. When she didn't stop screaming, I thought it odious that J chased her away by beaning her with cans of Rainier. Rainier's shitty beer, but we were all thirsty, and we could have used some cold ones after a ride up Cap Hill. J, it was really slick how you ripped the chain off your bike and started whipping the dude. That was awesome. It looked like you had done it before. I cringed a little when R pulled out his knife: i thought he was really going to hurt the dude. But the dude kept laughing at us, at how he had managed to take down a cyclist with his body. But R just cut off his pinky and his index finger (both disposable appendages). That got the guy to laugh less, but it didn't shut him up completely. I felt a little guilt when I urinated on the dude's bloody hand "to disinfect the wound, trust me, i'm a doctor, asshole." But I really had to pee right then, and the guy rammed us far from any open bars that would have bathrooms. Still, the guy wouldn't explain to us why he rammed us, and I understand, Scott, that you needed an explanation, anything to give you closure on the matter. I don't understand, however, why you started chewing his severed fingers in front of him. The only explanation you offered was "so he would get the message." But C was stomping his foot on the guy's face and the guy couldn't even know you were chewing his severed fingers. Maybe it was an inside joke? At the time, it felt perfectly reasonable to slash the guys' gilrfriend's roommate's tires. But later, I realized that was three levels of separation from the guilty party, and the wrong people would get the wrong message. Was that really worth it? Probably. We felt good. And those cars looked really stupid parked on the street like that. But what I can't get over, what makes me feel really guilty, is the puddles of blood the guy left on the street. That was a lot of blood. And some pieces of flesh. Some poor street cleaner is going to have to clean up that mess tomorrow. We just created extra work for someone who didn't do us any harm. We owe the street cleaner an apology.

I feel ashamed.