I should be thankful. We had a relatively mild summer, especially at the end. And, really, as far as a hot week in early September goes, this isn’t so bad. But it felt like it yesterday afternoon, as I patched my second tube in three days in the afternoon sun, on the side of the road, after a crappy day.

Even my journal’s lounged since Friday morning.

I’m going to have some tea and watch 300 with my wife.

Now I can take all my crap to work without getting sweaty. Plus, I wonder what effect it is having on potential thieves. It’s not all that cool looking, unless you’re a Fred. But it’s awesome just the same. A family member saw me riding home one day and identified me by that big red red red crate.  And it’s a great canvas for stickers, which adorn it currently.

Dan’s awesome backpack he’s taken everywhere, even to the hospital when his adorable daughter was born, with a Czech army bag I bought in Philly two weeks ago.  I might need to rethink my baggage for going to work.  Rainy days where I need to bring clothes and my big Klean Kanteen require a second bag, which is a pain.

Photo Friday: Awful.

I’m off’n wild wimmens
An cognac
An sinnin’
For I’m in loOOOOOOOve!
~ E.H.  Paris, ca. 1922.

Yeah, but, uh, just so you know, person in article: not buying stuff does not make you a “transcendentalist.”

From the same source, a piece on kids never going outside. This is strange to me. When I was a kid, not going outside to play was a punishment or my parents being strict because of rain. We rode bikes, created our own baseball league with stats kept in copybooks, played guns, got into minor trouble, socialized sans playdates, etc. But the kids I work with on cycling, most of them, don’t do anything like that. If they go over one another’s houses, its by car and their parents’ permission. Two made it to thirteen without learning to ride a bike at all. But with cycling, you have to go out, learn, risk, engage. It’s very different from the online video games these kids use as social interaction.

I think that’s why they’re taking to cycling like they are. One young man has taken his bike as transportation a few times that I know of, trips of a few miles for which his parents would usually drive him. I think that’s awesome. A few of them seem to enjoy learning how their bikes work, and most of them are amazed when I tell them something like, “That wasn’t hard, was it? We just rode thirteen miles.”

There’s hope! And, ahem, it seems like bikes certainly help.

Download the flier here, which I host with permission from GHCC’s PR person.

People can ride in the parade by signing up.  I might do it in a dress or some other feat of daring.  Daring because I don’t have a step-through frame, not because wearing a dress is necessarily brave.  I played a little gig in a nightgown once, in college.

Even more info can be found at Waverly Mainstreet’s blog.

But I won’t do something jerky like make that my “this weekend I spent hours fixing bikes” blog.  That’s this one!  My pal needed work done on his front derailer (Sheldon’s spelling), and Mrs. P. needed both of hers attended to.  Thing is, I forgot about the moving sun where I was working, and I got a bit of a sunburn.  I’ve gotten a few of those this year.  That’s not going to help the fact that I already look older than I am and have reached the age where that’s not good news anymore, just news.

But fixing things is always fun, and when you’re helping people to keep biking, that’s awesome, too.  Sunburn be damned.  A liter of water, an energy coffee drink dealy and Chinese food, and I was ready to face the world.

Which I did that evening, and Mr. Dan and I blasted all over North Baltimore, in search of a milestone on his new cyclometer.  We celebrated with cold drinks and chocolate, Mr. Dan’s treat.

I recently watched all six Star Wars films, too, in chronological order.  That is, in the order of The Force, not The Box Office.  Mrs. P. had never seen them, and I tried to keep my mouth shut.  I really did.  I hate how they changed the song at the end of Return of the Jedi, one of the most [musically] triumphant movie endings ever.  The other CGI stuff, I don’t know.  Whatever.  I’m pissed about that song!

Where are all these frikkin storms?

Damn.

Like I said, I was put into motion by two things.  One, a good thing.  Matt’s awesome bike bag.  Two, a bad thing.  I am going to leave out the name of the manufacturer.  But I have a new messenger bag that was a month coming, and it’s Okay and all.  But in addition to outsourcing and an obviously second-rate production job, my frikkin strap is fraying because its’ cheaper than my old ones by the same company.  It gets bound up with the cross strap, and it jams in the cam buckle.  But, of course, they cost more now.  Unfrikkinbelievable.

I think I might do what I’ve been flirting with doing for a year.  I might put a frikkin milk crate on my rack. I did think about taking my rack off last week, since I would never use it with a large messenger bag.  And I love bike racks and milk crates and all things Fred.  I mean, I never say, “Hey, look!  That chick has one of them there messenger bags!”  I do, however, shout when I see an awesome milk crate or otherwise something good happening on a bike rack.  I hope it would not get in the way of my seat, since I’ve had loads do that.  And those 700s leave my rack riding very high.  But it might be worth a try.  I think I have occasion to hit a store to buy hose clamps tomorrow.  And a family member, ahem, who, ahem, reads this blog, ahem, is in possession of a sweet Greenspring Dairy crate in green that would look frikkin sweet on my rack. Sweet rack.  Frikkin sweet rack.

Can I say FRIKKIN anymore in a post?

For Photo Friday: Minimalism.

Bikes locked together at the Ecofestival a few weeks ago.  Mine is on the right.

Photo Friday: Difficult Shot.

I follow religiously every morning.  Yesterday, this almost made me cry.  Getting sad over the death of a cartoon character might make me suck, but remember that watching “The Simpsons” is — as one family member has pointed out — like a church or mass or some such act of devotion for my brother and for me, doubly so when we are together to watch it.

I mean, I think it’s only logical.  “The Simpsons” is probably the greatest thing to be invented since bikes, even better than Dunkin Donuts or pain medication.  Watching it whenever you can just makes sense.  It proves that, despite my walking into things and spending my adult life in school, I am not a complete idiot.

You should love the Yehuda Moon comic and “The Simpsons” — prove your worth, I say.  (And buy me a shirt while you’re at it.)  I mean it.

Dan’s wheel was wobbling and hitting his brake arms. What the frikk?

We decided to walk the four miles home, rather than risk an injury or further damage. Dan was afraid that the heat of the descent warped his rims. I thought maybe he snapped or bent an axle. I mean, I can true a wheel like a sumbitch (for not getting paid to do it and having very little experience, that is). But I didn’t have any spoke wrenches on me.  We got home fine, though, and all was well.  I ate half a pizza for dinner.

Talked to Dan Sunday, and he found the problems. Bent axle, but also a snapped spoke. It was still attached to the nipple (huh huh huh), so we didn’t see it. No prob! We hit the shop, bought a spoke and went about getting it on. The freewheel was being a bee-otch and had to go into the bench vise.  The lockring tool had to, that is. That took a while. But then it came off, got cleaned up, Dan put the spoke on, and I got the wheel nice and trued up.  Working on bikes is a hell of a lot of fun.

Also, I was introduced to Lava Soap. Awesome.

[Also for Photo Friday: Professional.]