Leah and Ian's Project

Leah and Ian provided a lovely awning for the back door to the kitchen. The top is covered with plexi-glass that my dad salvaged from a display case somewhere. We tested it with the hose in back. It works.

Mom's birthday gate

Asa and I were in charge of taking out the old gate in the back of the house and replacing it with this awesome fella. I could stand on the lower rung without it sagging. GO TEAM!

Been a long bike season

And it's not quite over yet. I've got three more races that I'm planning on doing. The first is the state criterium this weekend. It'll undoubtedly draw out some of the big boys, but then again, I suppose that I should probably stop being intimidated by fast guys, since my own team is full of them. My teammate Brett is in the running for the state overall title, a points series compiled from results in select races throughout the season. It'll be a squeaker though, as there is a guy from our rival team breathing down my neck.

More my style, however, will be the state road race in two weeks. Held on a great rolling loop near Reading, PA, it is much better suited to me as an all arounder who doesn't mind climbing too much. I've been training pretty specifically for this race, and hope things will work out well for me.

My last race, of course will be the Brompton World Championships, held near Oxford in England. Jennifer and I are going for the race and will be touristing a bit around the country afterwards. I'm pretty psyched, as it'll be a really great chance to see the English Countryside and maybe partake in the fabulous fall sport of Mangold Hurling.

Note to self...

Don't try to present any information at a public forum after slugging back a Vietnamese iced coffee. It just isn't fun.

The things people say

While riding home last Friday, I passed by two guys talking. As is common practice in South Philly, a driver of a car, upon seeing a friend, stopped the car to talk, completely blocking the road. The SUV driver leaned out of the window to yell a "How you been doin" to his buddy with a paper plate piled with pizza slices. Pizza slice guy yells from his position on the sidewalk, "Better now, you heard I got shot right..."

I rolled on by, missing the rest of what was undoubtedly a fabulous conversation.

New themes

In an effort to get myself to post more, I'm going to try to do an "overheard on the street" type of theme for a while.

From Barb the ULTRA chatty secretary 1 cube over:

"I was down there and I saw this guy eating pancakes, and let me tell you, They looked AWESOME. I mean, I don't normally think to eat pancakes, but these pancakes were AWESOME. Seriously, they made me want to eat pancakes."

She's got a 2 week vacation coming up, and I must say, I'm thrilled. (For her)

Hiatus

I hate being one of those people who have a blog but never update it, mostly because I like it when I can read other people's stuff, and I assume that some folks like reading mine as well. I've got some good reasons for my absence, but they're mostly the kind of reasons that everyone has; busy as hell. I've been working 6 days a week for much of the summer, filling in at Trophy Bikes on Sundays, and then working for the City the rest of the time. Then, I do my neighborhood crap, bicycle racing crap, bike repair crap and sometimes sleep. Busy.

Jennifer and I did get away for a long weekend at the end of June. We went to Rickett's Glen State Park up in the Poconos. It is a fabulous little park, famed for its waterfalls. It was about 15 degrees cooler than Philadelphia, and there were miraculously no mosquitoes. It was great.

Happy Birthday

Happy 60th birthday Dad. I figure after all of the bikes you got for us, we should repay the favor.

Free night for a while

For the last month and a half I've been feverishly working on what my brother called, "The best birthday present ever". At Christmas I hatched an idea to give my dad a bike for his 60th birthday, which came around this past Saturday. Given that he's owned and worked at bike shops all of his adult life, I figured it might be a fitting present. I worked it out with my siblings and we ended up splitting the costs and even a bit of the production. It was intended as an English style 3 speed, complete with fenders, drum brakes, swept back handlebars and a chain guard. Of course the frame would be Bamboo, my material of choice. I started on bits and pieces of it as long ago as February, but a lot of things always seem to get in the way of building bikes. In my case, there were some setbacks when my friend TJ, who was going to weld up the dropouts for me, had his shop burglarized and all of his tools, and some of mine, stolen. I ended up figuring out some workarounds, so all was not lost, but it's always the little details that make the total project take a bit longer than anticipated.

The good thing about the project, is that I was able to farm out some of the aesthetic work to my siblings: Claire decorated the fenders with an awesome koi motif (my parents have had koi for about 12 years). Leah carved the saddle to look like a set of paisley chainrings, Ian was in charge of custom grips and final assembly, and Asa, who is currently studying in Chile worked with a local silversmith down there to make one of the most bad-ass head tube badges that I've ever seen. It was going to be HOT!

As always, I was absolutely scrambling to get things done on time. My daily rhythm for the past month has been: Go to work, come home, ride bike, go to basement until midnight working on bike, repeat. Oh yeah, sometimes we threw watching the Giro d'Italia in there as well. I finally got the bike assembled, boxed and out the door last Monday, it was then shipped to Ian in Madison, who ended up stuffing it in his car and driving it back to Ames to assemble Saturday morning. Last minute is a family specialty.

I think the results though, were pretty well received. My dad called to thank me, and for once, was nearly speechless. He just kept saying it was a beautiful bike. I think that we can call it a success.

Happy 60th Dad!

Super-duper-ultra-busy

With my new job, bike racing, working on bikes in my basement, working at Trophy on Sundays and trying to tie up some loose ends with my old work at the Clean Air Council and in the neighborhood, I've been stupid busy this past month. 6 day work weeks are not really good for my mental state, but at least I'm not bored. I'm starting to get a bit more comfortable in my office, and I'm figuring out the ropes here at the City of brotherly love, and endless bureaucracy.

I had planned a May postponement of my birthday, but that's looking less and less likely. It seems more that I'll probably just have a summer solstice party complete with some BBQ from the backyard. On the flip side, Jennifer is finally (mostly) done with her second year of school and has been busying herself domestically. She built a window box, baked some cookies and we finally built a planter for the Japanese maple that her mom bought for us when she was out last Thanksgiving. The front of our house is looking really nice with our little tree, and we'll get some compost and soil and put some plants in the window soon. This is going to be the greenest summer ever in the Mole Hole.

Working for the man...

Is an exercise in patience.

I'm learning the ropes slowly here at the City of Philadelphia. It's going to be a good gig once I figure out how to navigate the maze of departments and administrators and buildings and human resources that are contriving to confuse the hell out of me here. On the plus side, my boss is great--a nice guy with a great deal of knowledge. I've also been able to work some bicycling into my job, as I'm in charge of helping the Bicycle Coalition of Philadelphia with the May 21st Bike To Work Day events.

Negatives include:
-Being required to fill out and fax a separate time sheet each day, signed by my supervisor.
-Not having a building access card, which requires me to sign in daily at the front desk
-An office floor with alarmingly poor air circulation

More details as they come.

Patriotic Plastics

 
I went to this store called, Everything Plastic the other day to pick up some stuff for my bike-making enterprise and as they were pulling my order from the back I poked around the store a bit. They sell and make all kinds of plastic things, from weirdo chairs to plaques and awards. This one caught my eye particularly. It's kind of hard to make out, but the text reads:

Raytheon proudly introduces the
PATRIOT IV
Missile defense system
Defensive systems for the 21st Century

That was funny, but the best part about it was the sticker in the lower right corner, which is pretty much illegible in the photo. It reads

Authorized Dealer

I could have picked up some plexi glass and an ICBM defense system, all at the same place!

Bike Number 4

I took some pretty good shots of my 4th bamboo bike up on the Daruma Cycles Blog. Check it out if interested.

I can't believe that the city is making me take a physical before I get a job there.  It's really weird, because as far as I know, the Americans with Disabilities Act makes it illegal to not hire me at this point because of a physical illness.  I feel like I'm going off to boot camp somehow.  

No foolin, I finally have myself a full time job!

The city of Philadelphia recently received an enormous stimulus grant to build up a comprehensive anti-obesity program, and as part of that they're looking to increase the number of people who take transit and walk to work in the city. The guy for that job is ME!

Oddly enough, I didn't even apply for this position, though I did send my resume in for some of the other positions that are opening up with this grant. It'll be a big change from my scattered existence here at the Clean Air Council and Trophy. I'll still try to work a couple weekend days at Trophy, just to keep myself in the good graces of my bike "habit" supplier. I'm pretty excited to be doing one single job rather than splitting my attention into a million little pieces, but I am also a bit nervous about settling into the new job. Growing up, no matter how delayed, is always a bit of a struggle.

The fame, or perhaps infamy, continues unabated on the internet.  Check out the news from Bike Radar

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/brompton-us-champions-crowned-25532

Photo courtesy Dave Maialetti, Philadelphia Daily News.

As some of you may know, I've been training for Nat's since early this spring-- working on my position, some sweet modifications to my Brompton S2-X, and more than anything, doing sprint fold reps.

The race format was unusual, but I knew that through my hours of prep-work, I'd have as good a chance as any one for the Stars and Stripes Cumberbund that goes to a National Brompton Folding Bike Champion. We staged our bikes by registration number in a large grid, Le Mans style on the grass near the starting line, and then were directed behind the starting line some 50 feet distant. All 65 contestants were dressed in the required garb: collared shirt, dress pants, necktie and suit jacket. I chose a lightweight grey wool blend as my primary uniform. I knew that getting on the road fast was critical to success, so I staged myself appropriately. The gun went off and we sprinted for our Brommies, I wasn't first to the bikes, having run around the back side of the staging area for a clean shot, but my fold technique was good, practice had paid off and with about a 12 second fold, I was in good shape. I sprinted again to the road, mounted my steed and was off. There were two riders ahead of me at this point, Peter, who works at the Trophy Bikes Garage and who is a veteran Brompton Racer, and another unknown gentleman in a dashing white linen jacket. I put down some serious spin in my 56x12 (on 18 inch wheels) and caught up to Peter, where we formed the breakaway group. The dapper fellow in white dropped back, but there were still some riders working to bridge up as we rounded the bend and headed down Black Road. Black Road is treacherous on 700c wheels, but the 18s made it all the more exciting. I was able to avoid overcooking any of the turns and actually, the only crash I saw happened after the finish; brompton riders are a safe bunch.

Peter and I worked together pretty smoothly for the first straightaway, and then we proceeded to pull away from the other riders up Greenland drive and back around to the southbound leg of MLK. Peter seemed to have used up a bit too many matches in the start: he managed to fold his bike while running on the road, and we struck a gentleman's agreement not to sprint until the pillars. I was doing most of the pulling by this time, and while I suppose that we could have slowed a bit and saved some energy for the hill, I could smell the pastures of home, and I wasn't interested in getting caught by the competition. We turned back onto Black Road and I downshifted from my high gear into low, and we powered up the climb. I didn't make any strong accelerations at this point, but I managed to inch away from my breakaway partner up the hill and around the final turn. By the straightaway I knew that victory was mine. I was the United States Brompton Champion.
There are a number of good photos of the spectacle to be found here

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/multimedia/Knowing_When_to_Fold.html

I'm looking forward to Worlds in October. Roberto Heras (no I'm not kidding, and yes THAT Roberto Heras) won it last year, but I mean to give him a run for his money. ENGLAND HERE I COME!! Many thanks to Mike McGettigan at Trophy Bikes, for dreaming up this ridiculous event, making it happen, and loaning me a surprisingly sweet ride. Bromptons are fun.  Couldn't have done it without you.

Work is starting to be a bit fun, but also a bit hectic. Working at 2 different jobs is really not the ideal scenario if you want to do a good job at either place. I'm now stretched a little bit thinner than I would like, but I still enjoy my work at the Clean Air Council and at Trophy Bikes. I've almost got 3 jobs if you want to count the bamboo bike work as one, though I've not turned anywhere close to a profit yet.

Spring is here though, and that means that I'll probably be abandoning my other responsibilities on the weekends and riding my bike a lot more. I'm actually registered on Saturday to compete in the Brompton National Championships, silly as that is. I souped up one of the shop bikes last Friday and I'm going to take it for a test ride around the course this Thursday to put it through its paces. I'm a bit nervous, as always before a race that I should do well at. The first place prize is a trip to London in the fall, so I'd love to win it, though I'm sure that there are other guys who feel the same

It's a while since i last posted, a busy two weeks it has been. Two weekends ago was the fun one, Jennifer and I went down south of the Mason-Dixon line to hang out with some old friends and meet some new bikes at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. NAHBS was grand, and we stayed about the appropriate amount of time, though it would have been awesome to spend that time over the course of 2 days rather than cramming 8 hours of bikes into one day at the show. It was great to see all the bikes and get up close and personal with all of those purely custom vehicles. I finally had a chance to see so many of the bikes that I've been dreaming about and using as reference points for my own work on the bamboo ones. I was sure to come dressed for success in the Raleigh sweater that I had stolen from my dad several years ago. It's my favorite sweater ever, it looks great, and actually fits my minuscule upper body well. We stopped to say hi to some of the people that I'd met at other shows, and some of the builders from Philadelphia who were there as well. It was awesome to be totally surrounded by bikes, sweet bikes at that. At one point Jennifer and I were walking up to the Pegoretti booth to check out some of my favorite custom steel frames. As we approached the booth, a middle aged Italian guy came up to me and said, "Nice sweater!"

I responded, "Thanks, it's real vintage gear, I stole it from my dad."

The guy said, "Yeah, I know, I designed it."

My eyes probably bugged out a bit, and then he introduced himself as Giorgio Andretta, the founder of Giordana bicycle clothing. He had worked with the Michael's Cyclery cycling team back in the middle 80s when they were a dominant force in American bicycle racing. He introduced his son, and they took some pictures of me with my vintage sweater and then we chatted a bit about the good old days, when I was about 7 and Michael was running the team out of the shop in Ames.  

I remember as a kid always wishing that we had more money, and being upset because we couldn't afford a Nintendo, and we had to check out a VCR from the library, but I was always psyched that my dad worked at a bike shop. That was coolness to me. I am even prouder now to say that he owns his own shop.

I sometimes shake my head when I look at my $120 paychecks from Trophy Bikes after 6 years and a bazillion dollars that I spent on my own higher education, but I always find a little lift in my heart whenever I walk through the doors of a place that deals with my favorite conveyance.

The rest of the trip was good too, not to discount the joy of seeing Paul and Mary in DC and then Brendan and Meghan when we visited Meghan's place in Baltimore. We had some tasty food courtesy of Crisp and Juicy chicken in DC--some amazing Peruvian roast chicken that we demolished with just our bare hands around Paul and Mary's kitchen table. It was also great to catch up with B and Meghan, and hang out with their respective significant others. I always like hanging out with my first college roomate. B and I are not always the most alike, in fact we're pretty different aside from our general tallness, but we've always been extremely compatible. Part of that is just that Brendan is compatible with most people; he's the slowest person to anger I've ever met, or perhaps he's just the slowest to show it, and he seems to always know how to make people comfortable. The other part is that somehow we just clicked, we were excellent roomates, we always seemed to get along. I can't speak for him, but I can say that he never actually pissed me off while we were living together, though I certainly shook my head at his Malibu Coconut rum and his propensity to shower BEFORE heading to soccer practice. We recounted all of these things and we laughed a great deal about all of the dumb stuff that we did back in Dupre 3E. It was great.

Meet Sturmley, Jennifer's birthday robot. He took a fair bit of time to make but, like many such things, the result was satisfying. He's composed almost entirely of bike parts, mostly a Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub with some chains and pulley wheels as part of the affair as well. He doesn't fetch us coffee or do anything cool, but he does look great and he can roll on his own tank treads.

This is what happens when it snows in Philadelphia. Jennifer and I went to the store to get some black pepper and instead found that all of the table and kosher salt had been cleaned out. Philadelphians don't really understand winter. I can only hope the stores have had time to restock since Saturday as Snowmageddon Part II has arrived and who doesn't need some table salt to aid snow melt?

I've been spending a lot of time in the basement recently. I'm currently working on a bamboo and carbon bike for myself, and also a bit of a birthday present for Jennifer. I will post pictures of it at the appropriate time, which will be this coming Saturday, of course. I'm rather pleased at how it turned out, but I'll leave the final judgment to her.

We've also been watching a great deal of Daily Show episodes online. I like the show overall, and I really love the way that Jon Stewart, or at least his writers, are able to call out humor in the idiocy of our country. My main gripe is that the show could be so much better. With all of Stewart's penis jokes and googly eyes it's kinda like watching a precocious 15 year old ripping on politicians. I laugh at the penis jokes, as intended, but it's only my lizard-brain giggling. My other critique is the inconsistency with which Stewart approaches the interviews. With arch-rivals such as Lou Dobbs or John Yoo, he's an extremely good interviewer; asking hard, probing questions and letting his respondents answer for themselves (mostly). With people who are non-controversial though, he asks nothing but slightly insipid leading questions. It's like he has no faith that the people on his show have anything to say for themselves. If that were the case, why have them on in the first place?

 
More pictures of the holidays to come, but they were grand. One week home in Iowa, followed by one week up north in Montreal. The above is a picture of the ice hole into which we plunged for comic relief after half an hour of sauna-ing up an hour north of Montreal. Excellent.

 
Cold up there.

Snow biking. Like regular biking, but it's actually really fun to ride at 5 mph.

Philadelphia is not really built to handle snow. Philadelphians as well are not really able to deal well with snow. Especially not 23 inches of it. While anywhere else I would be ecstatic with the amount, here it has presented a bit of a problem, and that problem is paralysis. When one's street is only wide enough to accommodate 2 cars on a good day, it doesn't really have enough room for all of that extra frozen stuff. Therefore, our car is utterly blocked in, and it's even a bit too deep for my studded snow bike tires to do much good. I did go for an awesome snow-bike ride yesterday though, before we had gotten ourselves quite so boxed in.

It's confirmed. All is not as it was assumed to be in our neighborhood. For three years now we've known our neighbors by their nicknames, and now those names are ruined. I'll explain...

Next door to us are an elderly Cambodian couple, Old Guy and his wife Smiley. Old guy is named as he is primarily because he's old. Smiley, well she almost always has a scowl on her face as she shuffles down the block. Next to them is another Cambodian family that we have known for years as "Young Mama's Family". From youngest to oldest are Brandon (3) Nana (6) Jordan (10) and Jackie (13). There were also Young Mama, Young Mama's Husband, Young Mama's Mama and Young Mama's Dad. They all live in the house two doors down from us that is about as big as ours, maybe even slightly smaller. We've been calling them by these nicknames since we moved in, and it's waaaaaaaaaaay too late to go asking their names now. But there's a problem, and it all started when the guy we know as Young Mama's Husband bought a purple Chevy Impala. Jennifer asked Jackie who's car it was and responded that it was his brother's. Whaaaa? We had assumed that this guy who looked to be about 27 or so was his dad. Yeah, that would make him an extremely young parent, but that's not impossible right? Through some more sleuthing we have since determined that Young Mama is not the mama at all, but is the sister of all these younger kids. Now we're stuck without any names at all for the 4 adults in the house, since they were always based on Young Mama. We're going to have to go back to the drawing board with this one.

Unbusted

IMG_0519
Originally uploaded by aaroneritz

This is probably my best repair to date. It was ridiculously lucky that I happened to have exactly the same color of touch up paint as the rest of his bike. But I'll take all the credit.

Was Busted

IMG_0464
Originally uploaded by aaroneritz

Some jerk cut off my teammate Justin in a race, and then some other jerk ran into his bike. Lucky for Justin, he's got a teammate like me who fixes shit for fun.

Repairing bikes like mad. I've been spending far too much time in the basement these days, working on other people's bikes. Not that I mind working on bikes all that much, I just wish for the process to go a little quicker. In general though fixing bikes for my various teammates who have smashed them is not too difficult and does add a bit of cash to my otherwise cash-strapped existance. That existence will become ever so slightly more strapped once the default period for my deferred student loans expires next month. Yikes. I'm working full time these days which is great, but it's splitting between the two jobs that makes it challenging.

A friend of mine got me a certificate to take a sausage making class for my birthday back in April, I was all fired up and then the class got pushed back until September, and was I ever bummed. But guess what, I made it all the way to September and the class was waiting for me still.

The chef was the head meat guy from Vetri Ristorante, and had done work with Mario Batali in NYC before. The class was pretty good, and they gave a lot of tips to make the process easier. I'm glad that I had made sausage before as I was able to ask some more detailed questions about the process and make friends a bit with the chef. As it turns out, you don't necessarily need to add the lactic acid starter culture to your meats before you cure them, it just makes the process a bit more fail safe, though I found that when I made my smoked Chorizo that it turned the sausage pretty tart. Not a bad thing, but a bit overpowering sometimes.
The coolest part was that while the woman from Foster's was talking with the chef, they mentioned that Vetri and Osteria (same owner) in town both allow "try out" and help in the kitchen on Sundays. Anyone can come and set up a time to help for a day in the kitchen at some of the best italian places in town. I was talking to the chef after class and he told me to give them a call and come in some day when they are breaking down an animal-- they get whole pigs and lambs from a farmer in Lancaster and cut the meat all up themselves. I think that I'll have to do that some time soon!
The class really inspired me to make up another batch of sausage, bacon and all kinds of porky/meaty goodness. Our friends Matt and Stacey are having an Oktoberfest house warming party next week, and I might have to make some bratwurst for that.

Interbike was a smashing, if whirlwind success. My goal was to see as much bicycle stuff as possible in two days, and I succeeded, though it would have been much better in 3 days. I took the midnight express out to Las Vegas with Peter, TJ and Andrew from Trophy. It was an uneventful flight, I read Rugyard Kipling's "Kim" for much of the journey outward and we ended up in the Imperial Palace: the same dungeon of a hotel that my dad and I stayed at last year. Day two, Tuesday we headed out to the Dirt Demo where we checked out a wide variety of bikes for the dirt and road. I got a chance to pick the brains of my betters at Parlee and Edge Composites, whose wares I had previously either used, or coveted from afar. Good results. Day two involved a massive Interbike extravaganza as we tried to absorb as much bike knowledge as possible in a single day, well at least I did. I was taking the red eyed back to the east coast over night on Wednesday and couldn't miss even a single minute of my bicycle induced euphoria at the show. I was able to sleuth out some of the nagging questions of fit and finish at the show. I want to make more bicycles, but want to figure out how best to do it to keep up with current trends. I have an odd need to be avant guard for a guy who makes bikes out of bamboo.

Then I came back. Thursday was mostly a blur, though I did manage to finally put stamps on the newsletter that I've been working on at the Clean Air Council. It's hard working on a project 2 days a week and trying to get stuff produced in a timely matter. Finally though I've been able to print out some of the Cobbs Creek Trail Project newsletter and sent it out. I've forgotten what a trying process editing and critiquing can be. My main problem in this next week is going to be trying to focus on CAC work versus my bike stuff. I have this inherent love of bikes, that when excited, can take over everything else. I need to be a good worker in all aspects of my 2 jobs to count on continuing on with both of them. Ugh. Life gets more complex by the momemt. Also, TJ from the bike shop wants to start his own bike company. I don't know how it would work itself out, but it does sound appealing to make the decisions that these guys a the big brands are making. I want to be able to travel to the Taiwanese factories where 98 percent of all of the bike business is conducted!

Woo Hoo!
I got tickets to Interbike next week! I went last year for the first time, and it was an extravoganza of all things bike. Jennifer calls it Bike Porn, but really, it's more like love. Also, I got the carbon layup all done on the latest bamboo creation, and it's looking GOOD!! There are some new pictures up on the Daruma Cycles Blog. Check them out.

Excellent post in Cyclingnews by David Millar, who despite being a former doper, is one of my favorite pro cyclists. It is a perfect description of crashing in a bicycle race. Thankfully I have been supremely lucky in racing and, though I may jinx it here, have only been in 3 crashes in the past 3 years, only one of which was in a race. I've got two road races left for the year, so hopefully things will continue to go my way.

More pictures of Leah's visit available here: PICASA.

Leah and I had a great sibling bonding trip this month. She arrived late in the evening of August 5th and left the following Tuesday. Just a note to those who engage me in touristing, you should be in training at least 1 month ahead of time, because I will drag you around till you puke! Well, not really puke, but we were more or less exhausted by the end of our week together. Not even from fighting!

First we ended up riding the 18 miles or so to the Morris Arboretum where we saw some great big plants, some ferns, and my favorite, filbert trees. Not delicious until ripe and roasted, I will tell you that much. Interactive displays are pretty cool too, check out Leah with her "forest ears"


We then booked it back to our place, then booked it up to our friend Sara's studio where she does screen printing. This is the origin of Leah's awesome bicycle tee.


Friday involved some procurement of goods in the Italian market as well as the most delicious pizza that we have ever concocted: fig, fire roasted tomato and gruyere cheese. Delicious in a cosmic way. Leah and Jennifer also ended up making some mozzarella cheese, not quite the same sort of success there, but it was a valiant effort.


Saturday was NYC day and we took the Bolt Bus up at 8 am. We ended up walking from the bus station all the way to Chinatown where we met up with Nick and Amy who helped us elbow our way into a soup dumpling house. Delicious. We then ate Pandan and Peanut/Sesame ice creams at the Chinatown Ice Cream Shop. Also Delicious. We then saw such sights as the Brooklyn Bridge, statue of Liberty, Central Park and the Metropolitan museum of art where we only paid them $2! It's a SUGGESTED DONATION! Hah! For dinner Nick and Amy graced us again with their guidance and we ate ramen, the taste of my erstwhile home, Japan.

Sunday was hot as shit, but we drove out to scenic Lancaster county and Leah cheered me on to VICTORY in my bike race. It was my first win in over a year, and I was quite happy to have such an awesome cheer squad. We also saw a giant caterpillar, Amish people in buggies and stopped in a WaWa convenience store. Big day!

Monday we went rock climbing. Also hot as shit. At one point Leah accidentally put her arm on the rock, and slimed it so heavily with her sweat that she was unable to stand on it for the next move upwards.

We also saw the biggest spider that I've ever seen in nature. It was about the size of my hand. Scary.

We stopped by the superb Korean grocery on the way back and prepared ourselves a veritable sushi feast. My favorite part about the whole affair was the fact that Leah would cut up the fish or octopus or whatever and say, "Oh gross, I'm not going to eat that!" but then 30 seconds later she'd be chomping on some. We polished off a large hunk of salmon, a whole octopus arm and about 20 shrimp, not to mention the avocado and cucumber rolls.

Leah and I have the same appeteit for monster amounts of wasabi.

Tuesday was our last day together, and I was a bit sad that I wouldn't have a sibling within 800 miles of me any more. We decided to cap the trip off with a ride around Philly through the hilly reaches of the wealthy inner suburbus. And then we were going to tackle THE WALL. Bike afficionados in the Philly area know the stretch of Levering street in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia as the Wall because it starts off at about 10% grade then gets steep. It's about 1000 meters of uphill road, maxing out at about 17%. Dad didn't make it up the hill when he came out, a fact that I used to goad Leah into trying the hill. We had a valiant non-success that nearly ruined her day, but when we stopped by for "wooter-ice" the Philadelphia dessert specialty, we were all set. I was worried that we wouldn't get a chance to eat a cheese steak, but there, on the road to the airport, we found a shop that made a pretty good "wiz-wit", that is a cheese steak topped with cheese wiz and onions. A little slice of heaven right there.

It was a great trip overall. We have decided what our parents already know, that we are the most similar of any two Ritz's. That is, we both are tall with big butts and no shoulders, complain a lot and are secretly ultra-competetive. Family, a good thing to have to provide you with an exterior example of your own foibles.

I had another one of my standard zombie killing dreams last night. In this type of dream, I usually am faced with a horde of monsters of some kind and I often have to slay them with a sword or something. I have this dream about once a month or so. It's usually not that frightening, just very frustrating as I am unable to kill the monsters/zombies/aliens/attackers.
In this edition, some friends (unspecified) and I were at a house party when some zombies, who looked very much like the other partygoers entered the scene. They started tearing the place up and I ended up fighting with a giant woman zombie who I slashed and stabbed a short broadsword just like the one I saw at the Met the other week. No results, the zombie woman didn't die easily. After a great deal of consternation the zombie became somewhat docile and even let me know her vulnerable points. Then the scene jumped outdoors and I ended up in hand to hand combat with other zombies who just wouldn't die. This time I lost my trusty sword and ended up chopping people with a hatchet. Inelegant to say the least. At some point, I realized that there was some sort of faulty computer program that was generating monsters and I shut down the house computer, saving the day. A modestly successful zombie dream, if I do say so.

Holy crap. That's a bit how I feel right now. Holy crap.

Worked at the bike shop today with 1 other guy. On a Friday. In the summer.

We locked the doors when it was clear that the other 3 of the 5 of us who were supposed to be there were not coming in. We posted a nice little sign that said "If you know that you need something knock or call, otherwise, bug off." Some people heeded, some people didn't. I really have issue with people who are self important enough to disregard written signs. That's not cool with me, especially if I'm already having a bad day. In retrospect though, locking the doors was the only reasonable option, aside from calling all of the people who had services scheduled for the day and telling them that they were out of luck. Oh well, life goes on.

Babies are cute. They're even cuter when they're your friends babies and not some random ones wandering down the street. Jude and Michelle brought their baby, Shiloh to visit the east coast this past week and it was an absolute blast to see them again. They arrived last week and decamped first to Washington DC where Paul and Mary now live. It was a Mac Scot Clan reunion of sorts and a definite bastion of Midwestern sensibility here in South Philly for the weekend.

Jude has just finished up his dissertation and is now a bonafide psychologist. They'll be moving back up nort', eventually to Duluth where he's going to be working for the VA Hospital. A large climatic and cultural change to be sure.

We tried our best to fill the weekend with fabulous activities, some influenced by the presence of the baby, some not. Friday we did the cheese steak/Italian market/water ice tour, then proceeded to make some fabulous pizzas in the oven at home. Saturday included a brief jaunt on public transit followed by a tour of some of Center City since the brewery tour that was in the original itinerary was a bit out of the way. Saturday evening we ended up going to West Chester PA for a bike race, just so happened to be MY bike race. I did the 3/4 race and ended up a solid 5th place, my best result of the season at perhaps my hardest race so far. I felt like crap for the first half, but ended up doing well so as not to let down my exceptional cheer squad. Mexican take out for dinner. I introduced our friends to the joys of the Torta Cubana. An exceptional sandwich for those interested in calories.

Sunday was our final day, but we made the most of it with a grand frisbee golf outing followed by home-made pulled pork sandwiches. I got up at 6 to start the smoker out back and slow roasted the shit out of a pork butt. It was awesome. I'm most definitely doing that one again! Then Jude, Michelle, Shiloh, Paul and Mary all piled into their little car and headed back to DC. Sad to see them go for sure, but it was great to have the guests. It was really cool to have a little kid crawling around in the house, but even better to be able to give her back to Michelle when she got cranky. We'll have to schedule a visit to Duluth next summer!

It's easier to avoid falling asleep when wrenching on bikes than when sitting in a quiet (mostly) office. I've always suffered from post-meal doldrums and it seems as though that trend has not abated. I usually try to counteract that with caffeine, and since there's no coffee machine here, I had to make do with my patent Coffee Bean GORP. That's right, just chuck some coffee beans right into the trail mix and you have ready made, power up mix.

I post today from the desk of my internship. I am now working full time for the first time in over a 2 years! Sure, I've divided my time up between two jobs, but it still counts as full time as far as I'm concerned. I'm now working on the East Coast Greenway as part of my work at the Clean Air Council. Oddly enough, I'm working for the direct replacement of my former supervisor's wife. Chris Linn was my supervisor whilst working at DVRPC last year in school, and his wife, Emily, was one of the first planning people I met here in Philly. I interviewed for much the same position as this three years ago when looking for summer work. Crazy.

It's also great to finally be able to use some of the networking I did over this past year. We're meeting next week with I guy I had an informational interview with last fall. I am continually amazed by exactly how small Philadelphia is. I guess that explains why I haven't been able to find a job in planning yet, everyone already knows everyone else. I am now trying to bust my way into the network at last.

The miracle of smoke. I was able to transform the fuzzy skins of my spanish chorizo into a delightful amber rind, all with the simple application of a bit of smoke in the ol' air duct-cum-smoker that I set up in the back. Give it another five days or so and we'll be in business with some tasty sausages!

Well, some days are good, other days are bad. Tuesday was a bad day for me. The morning started off ok, I often do a workout with guys from the bike club at 6:30 on Tuesdays. I got out to the workout ok, then the rain came. Thinking that I was going to be a tough guy and ride through it, I opted to continue on until about 8 or so when God's own thunder and lightning rolled out along with some of the strongest rain I'd seen in a while. Shitty that I had my cell phone in my pocket the whole time. I arrived home thoroughly soaked, cell phone on the fritz, to the sound of Jennifer in the basement with the shop vac. That of course means that the basement was aquatic by that time. Fortunately the rain was over by that point and we only had to bail 50 gallons of water instead of 100. We've had worse.

Of course at this point, while we were mucking around in the basement, I noticed that not only were the sopresatta that I'd been making starting to sprout mold, they had been gnawed on by mice! Those carnivorous little bastards! They didn't get to all of it, thank god, because that would have been about $40 worth of meat and ingredients down the tubes. The mold I ended up washing off to no ill effect, but needless to say, I was pissed.

Then I checked my email as I had been eagerly awaiting to hear back from the most recent job that I applied for. I heard back. I didn't get it. As much as I had tried to keep myself from getting excited about a job that was not yet (and never to be) mine, I couldn't help it. After the second interview, I was sure that I was going to be picked. As far as I know the girl who was my competition was another former Macalester student, and also a recent Penn grad. She had been interning at the office, which was an advantage to her, but the flip side is that I know from personal experience in dealing with her, that she is annoying as hell. Advantage me. As far as I know, the only person who has ever called me "annoying as hell" is Jennifer, and those are extenuating circumstances.

Alas, it was not to be. I am pretty fucking sick of this economy, or whatever it is that is conspiring to rob me of my chosen employment. Ennui ensues. I honestly don't know what I should do next. I guess I'll try to volunteer someplace and get some "work experience". How on earth one is supposed to get work experience if no one will hire you is beyond me, but so it goes. At least people are still interested in bamboo bikes.

A brief report on the darker side of amateur bike racing---


Here's the answer to the main question: Donnell is doing OK and has
plans to race Cargas.

He went down with about 5 to go in the slightly sketchy off camber
corner 2 at Bethlehem today. There must have been extra gravity there
because exactly one lap later, and despite the fact that everyone was
yelling "NEUTRAL LAP" other jerks decided to crash, in exactly the
same spot.
Against Donnell's request, I opted not to do the 1-2-3 and followed
him to the emergency room of St Luke's hospital.
Donnell and I spent the following 4 hours in the emergency room
thinking about exactly what he had done to invoke the crash gods, and
we came to no good conclusions. He probably crossed the same Gypsy
who has hexed Tyler's wheels with perpetual flats.

As far as his injuries go, D is pretty banged up and in a good deal of
pain, but it should be mostly temporary. He did not end up breaking
his collarbone, but merely separated his "AC Ligament", the C of which
is Clavicle, and the A I have no idea. This extends his streak of
never actually having broken a bone, despite his best attempts. This
sort of ligament separation is the type that they just let heal
naturally-- it will probably never be back to 100%, but the ligament
doesn't do much anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem unless he takes
up professional rock climbing or something. The doctor said that
recovery should be between 4 to 6 weeks, but I predict that D will be
on his bike again by next week. As a spectator to the whole thing, I
was pretty surprised by Donnell's toughness, he was a rock through
what looked like a lot of pain. He certainly made some funny noises
when they scrubbed the road rash, but he is one tough dude. We made
it home by about 8 this evening. The car ride was eased by a drug
coctail consisting of 2 shots morphine, 1 Percoset, 1 Valium and 2
pints Guinness. When we arrived at his house, his kid Avery assured
me once again that his daddy was the best bike racer, but that he
really liked my pink bike. "Daddy's white bike is faster though."

The most interesting aspects of his injury were those left by the
helmet; he has a mark on his right cheek where the strap gave him
rugburn in the crash, and he totally abraded the top of his left ear.
I am confident that the helmet was a key factor in us being able to
drive home tonight, without it and I don't even want to speculate how
ugly it could have been.

New Favorite Sport:

I think that possibly Cheese Rolling tops my previous favorite of Mangold Hurling as top crazy British sport.

I had forgotten how peaceful the Midwest is, especially when compared with Philly. I spent a really nice 4 day weekend in Minneapolis and Saint Paul for my youngest sister's graduation. Leah graduated Cum Laude from Mac, besting both of her brothers in grades and equalling them in the quality of drunken incident stories. Good stuff. The Dark Goat is happy.

The rest of the family was up too, and it's an unusual occasion to have all 7 of us in one spot anymore. Christmas is about the only time it happens these days. We had a good time, hanging out, cooking food, shooting the shit, telling stories about all the dumb stuff that we (mostly I) did as kids.
The ever popular stories included: Aaron shot himself with the BB gun, Aaron fell out of the tree while repelling off of the garden hose, Aaron cut his finger with the butcher knife, Aaron made gunpowder, Aaron nearly burned the house down etc.

It's nearly miraculous that I survived childhood.

Speaking of childhood, I spent two nights at the ever hospitable home of my friends Ben and Marye where I was able to meet an amazingly cute baby, thier son Levi. Check out the pictures for your self, the kid is a pure photogenic genius.

Proof positive. I was sired by an alien. The mystery is over.

I went out for our weekly shop ride this morning on the Daruma Cycles Mark II frame. It's approximately my size and is set up as a cyclocross/touring commuter. I put it together last week with all of the parts from my cyclocross bike in order to do a test run before sending it off to its eventual home. My impressions are overall quite positive. The bike rides great, looks good and attracts stares. My friend Cliff put it as, "Like riding a bicycle made of puppies," in that everyone wants to stop and talk to you about it. I even got a double take from this woman in business attire, stilletto heels, and legs that went all the way to the ground. Had she been looking at me, it would have been a first, but lots of people have asked me about the bike, so I chose not to be too flattered.

Last Friday I had people over for a birthday pizza bash. Great fun and great food was had by all. I bought enough dough for about 25 pizzas and we ate probably 22 all told. The pizza stone is one of my kitchen favorites: nothing tastes better than pizza popped straight out of the oven, except for maybe pizza that has been pulled straight from the oven 4 minutes ago, after the cheese loses its ability to peel the skin off your mouth.

I was also happy to debut my first ever home-made sausage. The picture should say it all, but 8 pounds of sausage is a lot! I need to tweak the recipe or my technique a bit, I have not quite mastered the interior texture, these were a bit too grainy and not quite as unified as I'd like.

Just in time for racing season: a benediction for the fleet of wheel!

http://www.theblessingofthebikes.com/

Due to the regrettably inexorable march of time, I am rapidly approaching my 30th birthday. Heck of a deal.

No new news on the job front, but that's to be expected, I think. I have however purchased all the necessaries for making my first batch of home-made sausages. A nice fat pork butt, some casings, some spices and away we go! This will hopefully complement the home-made bacon, homebrewed beer and some nice home-fired pizza that we're going to be making this Friday. Thirty shouldn't be so bad afterall.

My third batch of bacon is now ready to be eaten, and I must say that it's the best of the lot! Jennifer and I ordered a bunch of supplies from Butcher Packer Supply: pink salt (Sodium Nitrate), wet casings and also some dry casings for making sopresata. This, combined with the cookbook that Jean gave me for my birthday, will put us well on our way to making our own fresh and cured sausages! I just have to make sure not to kill myself with botulism.

Alrightie! The presentation is up on the Darumacycles Blog. I had a really good time meeting people and talking about Jennifer's bike. As it turned out, a lot of the other presenters didn't really have a good feel for the format (20 slides, 20 seconds per slide) and so didn't present the information in a very interesting way. I think (perhaps because I have little else going on right now) that I was able to put a bit more into the presentation, and it turned out quite well. In my dream world it would have been something like, "Aaron, great presentation! I loved the bikes, but have you considered working for a city planning/design/architecture firm? Here's my card..."

No dice.

I was able to chat up the Philadelphia City Planning Director, but he's got a smaller budget than I do right now, so I guess I'll hit the pavement.

Ok, I've had some requests for a report on the presentation I gave last week and it is forthcoming, but check out these shirts first!



I have never been happier to be an Iowan!

I've started a new blog as I am figuring out what the hell to do with my bamboo bicycle concept. I dearly love building these bikes, and am already in the process of building one for my brother Ian's boss at Willy Bikes in Madison. The new blog is called Daruma Cycles, with a link over on the sidebar of this blog. Daruma is a Japanese god/good luck charm. He's known for perseverance and good will and I think that I'm going to need both of those if this venture is going to succeed. The Japanese buy little Daruma dolls at temples around new years, and then make a wish while coloring in the pupil of one of his eyes. When the wish comes true, you color in the other eye, and then burn the daruma to send your thanks heavenward.

I'll be much happier once I get done with the presentation I'm giving this Friday at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson architectural firm. One of my teammates from the bike club is an architect there and recommended me for the session. The format is 20 slides, 20 seconds each. It'll be a fast and furious presentation and I hope I'm up to it. I'm a bit rusty after several months of non-academic work.

 

It is time to get back on the horse again. Winter be dammed, it is approaching cycling season. As much as my bike Pinky loves the snow, after crashing once or twice, I think that I'll stick to a different bike for slippery conditions. I eventually put the snow tires on my cyclocross bike. That was a good idea for sure. I always love the invincible feeling of studded tires as they click across the ice, saving my ass from certain flattening.

New Surf Club, and I'm in it. ESSC stands for the Eastern Seaboard Surf Club. Check out the Blog!

Bicycle construction remains a-pace. I've been working on building a new frame jig, this time more easily customizable and much more sturdy. I've also begun the process of curing the next round of bamboo, should be interesting as I've decided to put it into the smoker!

In other news, my first recipe from the Alaska Bootlegger's Bible turned out not to be the smashing success that I'd hoped. Milk wine, as it turns out, tastes pretty gross. When the ingredients are powdered milk,sugar, Lactaid and yeast,one can't really hope for much, but at the same time, I had some high expectations for something at least drinkable. Nope. Not for human consumption, though I might try to set the stuff outside to see if the cats get drunk off of it.

I've been a bit delayed, but I thought I'd post some pics from my newest diversion, SURFING. I got a call from our friend Matt who happens to own two surfboards and two wetsuits and we headed out about 10:00 on December 2 to Ocean City to foray into the wild world of surf. I spent most of my time trying to get out past the breakers, and had maybe 3 chances where I could maybe have stood up on the board. I didn't really stand a chance. I emerged about 2 hours later, exhausted but strangely exhilirated.

A couple of observations: Wrestling your way into a wetsuit on a 40 degree day is not exactly fun, but is in no way as bad as wrestling your way out of one, wet, on a 40 degree day.
Secondly, Waves, while they may not look crazy from the shore, are much bigger when your head is only inches from the surface of the water.

I had so much success making a bike at home that I thought I might diversify... TO BACON!!

After reading several accounts on how inferior store bought bacon was, and how easy it is to make your own, I decided that I had to try it for myself.

Step one is to get a pork belly. I happen to have a butcher at hand who not only sells pork belly, looks like he has a little one of his own! You take the pork belly and slather it with a dry rub of about 50% salt 50% brown sugar and stick it in a ziploc bag in the fridge for about a week. I thought that I would be creative and I took some pineapple and blended it up with the salt/sugar mix and pasted it all over the little porkbellies. Bad idea. Pineapple apparently has some sort of chemical in it which essentially digests meat protein. After about a week in the fridge, I looked in the bags and found that instead of drying out the juices and curing the bacon, the exterior of the pork belly had turned to salty pig slime. No matter, I simply washed off most of the slime and re-salted the little bastards, left it in for another 3 days and proceeded with the process.


The picture here shows the cured pork belly with the salt brine washed off. The most disconcerting part of the whole affair was the fact that pork bellies come with skin and in this case, a nipple, still attached.

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Next step was to wait over night while the surface dried out into a "pellicule" and then smoke the bacon. I decided to turn our chimanea into a smoker by placing a plank over the top and front, and then suspending a piece of wood with spikes and a thermometer from the top. This would be my pork holder. I stoked the fires, and then quenched them a bit by covering the bed of coals with a double layer of tin foil. This kept the heat in the chimney at about 200-250 degrees, ideal for smoking. To create flavor, I put some water-soaked apple wood chips that my dad had mailed to me (think I'm crazy? Meet Ronn Ritz)on top of the foil layer. The water keeps them from bursting into flame and produces more smoke. Then I sat back and waited for about an hour and a half while the bacon smoked and reached an internal temperature of 150 degrees.

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After smoking, the bacon was essentially done. All that remains is to slice,

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and enjoy!!

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Tastes pretty damn good. Next time I skip the pineapple, add some sage and some sodium nitrate!

If you're still curious about the bamboo bike project, I've posted more pictures on my flickr page.

There is some descriptive text next to each. The basic gist is that it wasn't honestly all that difficult if you have a sense for how bikes are put together. The total cost for frame materials was somewhere in the range of $200, and that includes the MDF and bolts used to make the jig. I'm hoping to put together a cyclocross bike for myself this winter some time--I think that the vibration damping qualities of the bamboo would be nice for that application. I've harvested some more bamboo and while waiting for that to dry, am contemplating my next frame jig, hopefully something more adjustable that will work for different frame dimensions. I'll post more on that process as it goes along.

Wow, thanks to everyone who has complimented me on the bike, you boosted my ego just like I had hoped. I've received numerous inquiries about the project and a bunch of "You should sell that!" comments. No plans for such things yet, but talk to me in a couple of months and I may have a different opinion depending on how the job market treats me. I'm kinda not too optimistic about that; too many people are way to freaked out about their financial future to offer me a job. Kinda sucks, but I'm more or less resigned to it, and I've been able to find some alternate employment for the time being. My new gig is guinea-pigging for the NIH. I'm going to be a part of a cholesterol study in which they starve me, feed me heavy cream and then take a core sample of the fatty tissue of my ass. ALL HAIL SCIENCE! At least it pays well, $1200. I would imagine that it will be at least moderately unpleasant because the pay is so good. No one would pay you that much for something easy.

Tonight I finished Jennifer's Bamboo road bike. I have but two words to describe how I feel about the thing: Supreme Satisfaction.



The project has been ongoing much of the summer, I started in late May by harvesting some bamboo growing north of here along the Schuylkill River. I then dried the bamboo for about a month and a half out in the back. By the time the bamboo was bleached a pleasant tan, I was ready to begin the bike.

Stage one involved plotting out the geometry, along with about 6 hours of relearning trigonometry as well as drafting on the kitchen table to get things right. Then I built the jig, mitered the bamboo tubes and glued them together with epoxy.

Next I began the process of laying up carbon fiber sheets around the joints. I've got no pictures of this because my hands tended to be covered with epoxy at that time















After probably close to 100 hours off and on over the course of the summer, I finally finished the frame and then began the lengthy process of acquiring parts. I opted for Campagnolo, because really, it's the best. That, and I had a number of spare parts floating around from my various Campy bikes.

And here is the finished ride. The kanji on the down tube and seat tube read, Ichi go, Ichi e, which is a Japanese saying that translates roughly into, "you have one chance in life, so make it your best," or alternately, "every instance is unique and valuable." Honestly, it sounds a lot less corny in Japanese. I first heard this term on a sake brewery tour when we were in Nagano in which our host's actions truly exemplified the idea of ichi go ichi e.
As for the bike, I put it together at Trophy Bikes and took it for a quick test ride earlier today. The ride quality is TOTALLY SWEET! I realize that I have a bit of a bias, but truthfully I have ridden very few bikes that felt nicer. The bike seems to float over bumpy road surfaces, almost as if it were on giant baloon tires, but nope, they are just 700x23 clinchers pumped hard as rocks. My big worry was that I had not gotten the frame alignment right, but that seems dead on too; riding no-handed is no problem. Oh yeah, and it corners like a fricking roller coaster and it accelerates as fast as anything I've ever ridden. Maybe that's due to the fact that it weighs only 16.5 pounds! I had no idea that it was going to be so light and honestly did a full on "YESSSS!" complete with double fist pump when I hung it on the scale.

Despite my bias, I think that my claims are somewhat well founded. I had as many people as I could test ride it earlier today, mostly to show off, but everyone was suitably impressed, and I don't think that they were just doing it to be nice. I am SUPER PSYCHED, as was Jennifer. She insisted that I take pictures of the bike and post them as soon as I could, and then proceeded to put the bike in the bedroom so that she could take pictures of it. I think that she likes it.

Here are some shots:

I honestly don't give a crap about baseball. I remember one summer being cajoled by Jude and Alf to drag myself to a Twins game. It sucked. All I wanted to do was escape and I think I bitched the whole time about how slow and boring the game was. Shitty shitty baseball.

But, on the other hand, THE PHILLIES ARE THE 2008 WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!!!
There's something pretty awesome about the collective joy and catharsis of a winning sports club in a city like Philadelphia. People here are pretty up front about their emotions and those emotions overflowed last night as people were honking, screaming and apparently throwing rocks late into the night to celebrate. I even found myself cheering a little when Brad Lidge struck the last guy out in the top of the 9th inning. Yes, I even know some of the players names now. I even know what some of the plays are called. The apocalypse has come.

Here are some pics from my latest cross endeavour.

I'm well into the third fall here in Philadelphia. It's been nice not to have school to contend with, but honestly, I'm getting a little buggy without fulltime employment. I have been assured that there are jobs out there, but damned if I can find them. I have thus far been able to occupy myself with small tasks around the house, building Jennifer's bike and various other things. Now I'm just antsy. At least I have a bike to ride.

I was cross examined this weekend, in a big, painful way. Result: Pass, but just barely.

The Granogue race was on saturday. The race course is laid out in a segment of the DuPont family estate, and has a wide variety of hills, dales and rooty trails to negotiate. Overall the course was on the technical side with those riders who could get out in front quickly and stay away in the following melee at a distinct
advantage. I, without the virtue of preregistration, found myself squarely starting in 108th position at the line. Not the ideal place to be on a course in which crashes and ugly conglomerations of riders make moving up relatively difficult over the long haul. I felt pretty decent, had no real mechanical failures and eventually found myself in no-man's-land toward the middle of the race. This is not quite as bad a place to be as in a road race, but it still no easy feat to bridge
up to riders further along the course. With one lap to go, I managed to get a side stitch and lost 3 or 4 places to various other folks and ended up in 49th.

Wissihickon on Sunday. Got there plenty early and the wide open course was great for spectating but also great for whipping any last trace of heat from a person's body. I'd raced the course in past years and had a bit better idea of what to expect, plus the wider trails allowed me a bit more chance to pass people. I also preregistered (a must for a big cyclocross race) and was a few spots ahead of last this at the start line. The race went pretty well, and except for my general weakness in the tighter technical spots, I did a decent job of making up ground
against other guys. I ended the day in 30th spot. Another Pass.

The best part was sitting in the sun afterwords, drinking some Victory beer and watching the OTHER guys suffer. That's what cyclocross is really all about.

Ahh, I just had a true hankering for the home country, the midwest. My sister, Leah, recently wrote an article for Minnesota 2020 about locally produced beer from Minnesota. Beer brewing has always been an autumnal hobby for me, mostly because summer is too goddam hot to boil up a kettle of boiling wort. Fall days though, bring me the desire for hoppy, malty goodness.

For some reason fall always produces ueber strong feelings of nostalgia in me. I don't know what the deal is, but the crisp, cool mornings and the smell of drying and decaying leaves suck me back in time to previous years. Fall rolls around and suddenly I can think of nothing more than bike touring through Europe, or hiking through the mountains above Nagano, or running in cross country meets across the upper Midwest. Why, it was just about 8 years ago to the day that I ran my best 8k time at Lacrosse, Wisconsin. 26:24 I believe.

This fall has been occupied with thoughts of job getting and bike riding. Jennifer's bamboo bike frame is complete, I just need to get some components and build the thing up. I'll post pictures of it when I get things all settled. I had a great time at Interbike with my dad; we totally got overexposed to bicycles but somehow I still want more. Part of it is that the show is like candy for me. I just can't bear to let the sugar high go, and so I want to purchase all of the stuff that I saw there. Maybe when I get a real job I'll be able to afford all of these goodies.

Though it may seem obvious to some, a couple of beers is not a good prerequisite to an evening of sharpening knives. As per usual, I learn through trail and error. Mostly error.

Monday I head out to Las Vegas to meet up with my dad for a father-son-bike-geek-out at Interbike, the largest bicycle industry trade show in North America. It should be a blast. I have rarely had an overload of bicycle stuff, but this may be a chance for me to do just that.

Yet again, far too long since my last post.

Projects underway as of September 1st:
-Home carbonation techniques have been refined. I have made my first batch of tonic water and have perfected my recipe for carbonated coffee. It surprisingly delicious.
-Jennifer's bamboo bike project has come into the final straightaway. I merely have nto sand away the excess epoxy and give it a final finish. I've already got the head tube badge logo figured out. It should be pretty classy
-Tomatoes are delicious, even if they have managed to get the goddamn blight for two years running. At least it seems to only affect the leaves. I've eaten little but BLTs for the past three days.
-Sourdough starter is finally up to snuff. I have discovered the joys of the sourdough. It's not difficult, and need not be all that sour. My biggest problem lies in following a recipe, so I end up with a lot of different breads coming from the same general list of ingredients.
-Job Hunt is on. I recently interviewed with the Montgomery County Planning Commission and found the job to be much to my liking, though the commute wouldn't be. It would require a 10 minute bike to a 40 minute train followed by a 5 minute walk. Given my current spoiled state in which I can roll out of the door 18 minutes before I need to be at school or at the bike shop, this would simply not do. I came to Philadelphia for the walkability and convenience of living in a city, and this would be a sidestep at best.
The second interview was with an outfit called the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia. In addition to sounding important, they actually produce a great deal of good work; primarily in the form of policy documents and reports on issues affecting livability and economic vitality of the Philadelphia region. Given my firm belief in regionalism and in the fact that the fellow with whom I interviewed was a bike nerd of similar caliber to myself, I think it would be a good fit. We shall see what the second interview will hold.