Stretching for Cyclists

A good PDF on stretching for cyclists can be found here. Someone posted this on MBL today and it's worth sharing.

On another note, I scored a used BOB trailer last night for damn fair price. No pictures yet, but I will get the camera and document it at some point. The BOB is a clever design and I hope to use it for groceries and errands. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to attach to the bike. The Cross Check has the BOB skewer in the rear wheel now and I have one more skewer, so the next task is to see if I can fit this on Molly's Breezer. I am a little afraid of that Nexus hub, but we'll see.

I took it out tonight for a test ride and it was great. When you hit a bump, the un-loaded trailer bounces and it feels a lot like a flat, but it settles down quickly and it's not a problem. I plan to load it up this weekend with groceries and maybe a run to Home Depot. Pics will be posted.

That is all.

Is it just me?

Or does this saddle look like male genitailia?














P.S. This is from a Terry bike on MPLS CL.

Stucchi Poster

I have not heard of Stucchi bicycles before, but I came across this poster on the interweb tonight and tried to do some research. I found only one photo of an actual Stucchi bike (it was yellow a yellow single speed). Classic Rendezvous says:

"Stucchi were known for their high end town bikes and only made a small amount of racers. They fielded a team in the late 40s for the Giro and the Tour. Yellow was the company color.

Family descendants play a role in organising recent Eroica's in Gaole Tuscanny."

Here is all Classic Rendezvous' got (click the link).

Now they seem best known for posters of their product; I found a lot of places that would sell re-prints of the posters on the net, but only one bike photo.

It seems that the advertising has eclipsed the product
in this case. Nice poster, though.

Safe at Home

Flew back from ANC today with a nice older couple from Kitchner, Ontario. They did the Alaska cruise scene and had to tell me all about it, but they shared their oreos with me, so it was fine. Five hour flight with some turbulence over Nowhere, Canada. Otherwise it was uneventful. Glad to be home for the remainder of the holiday weekend.

Link of the week: http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/

Someone has taken to photodocumentation of "Guidos" on this website. It is hysterical, especially if you have ever lived on the east coast and run into these guys.

Moose on the Loose

Here is a token Moose shot. This guy was working his way down Cordova Street in Anchorage this morning when I got up. He is actually a pretty small moose - probably born last year.

People that have not spent time in Anchorage are often surprised to learn that the moose are common in town. This one was browsing very close to downtown. The municipality of Anchorage has something like 700 moose living within it. In some locations, like near the airport, you can see them almost every day.

I nearly collided with a moose while riding my bike once when I was doing an Anchorage Trail Watch patrol. We startled each other, but neither of us were the worse for wear due to the near miss.

Guest Book Now Added

I added a guest book to this page. It is located towards the bottom of the right column. So far there's just a message from me on it. If you want to drop a line, be my guest.

On the Road Again

Tomorrow I leave for Anchorage for a couple of days for Alaska North Slope Gas duty. It has been insane since January and I have either been traveling or sick (funny how that works) since then. Not much new because of the heavy work and light recreation routine I am on, but I'll post pre-Anchorage photos. Anchorage has a "1% for Art" rule in the municipality. I like the concept; 1% of the cost of a construction project is set aside for public art. The net result is that Anchorage has some fantastic public art scattered around town. Unfortunately, the 1% rule has created more demand than the good artists can meet.

Exhibit number 1: the public art that was installed outside our offices:



These freakish Iggy Pop beasts hang out in front of the Key Bank building in downtown Anchorage. They were installed (or abandoned?) with no explanation and have been there now for about two years.

Hopefully the weather will be good as will the trip.

Thule > Yakima

We bought a new roof rack for the car a couple of weeks ago to replace the two Yakima trays that we had. These units supposedly attached to the existing factory rails on the Subaru, but they were very wobbly, held the bikes at a scary angle and generally made me feel like I would soon be replacing anything I put up there.

That was not acceptable, so I ended up dropping more than I wanted to on a Thule rail kit and two "Peloton" trays. I finally got around to assembling the thing this morning and I have to say that the fit and finish, and the installation was far superior to the Yakima kit. The Thule is up there like it was welded to the car, the bikes are perfectly straight (not leaning or wobbling) and the fork attachment mechanism locks and is clever as hell. A big improvement for us.

Photo credit to Mountain Bike Review.

An Oldie but a Goodie

Time to re-run my video of a wind turbine self-destructing. This is from Norway, I believe. The braking mechanism failed and the poor turbine pulled itself apart. It is pretty dramatic and worth clicking on the link. As far as I know, no animals were harmed in the making of this video, but the turbine probably got a few birds and bats before it met it's end.

The Sad Tale of Puppy O'Shaunessy

I first saw this on "How to Avoid the Bummer Life". Here's the link:

Puppy Tales