Now I kinda want a torch

I absolutely love factory tours. For reasons of which I am not quite sure, Brompton brazes their bikes rather than welding them. I speculate that this might be just for a retro appeal, or it might just be some staunch curmudgeony habits. Can't say really.

Patriot

  Didn't really do the flag proud, but hey, that's bike racing. At least I remembered how to fold the flag appropriately when our photo shoot was over.

Poo

The Puerile Professor Poopy Pants Pouting at the Palace Pondering Punctures.

Lovely little church

Blockley Hotel

This was our home base for the two days we spent in the Cotswold village of Blockley. This was by far my favorite part of the trip. As ultimately English country as it comes, and just stunningly pretty. More sheep than people in these parts, and our hotel had been in operation for something like 400 years (under new management)

Folly

Broadway Tower, in the Cotswolds. It was designed and built as a cool place to throw a party. That's all. They've got some super gargoyles on the corners as well.

Gargoyle in the making?

Jen trying her own face as a gargoyle. Not scary enough, in my opinion.

Right of way

Did I mention that I really liked England? Public walking paths throughout the country, even through farm fields. That is an AWESOME tradition. I've got the strange notion that hikers would get shot at if we suddenly started walking over hill and dale in this way in the US.

York was nice

Some quaint and lovely street in York. I really liked York, and it didn't hurt that they had one of my favorite bike shops from the trip, Cycle Heaven.

Glenkichie

We took a distillery tour of Glenkichie scotch. Owned by Johnny Walker's parent company, it's liquor is a chief constituent of Johnny Walker Black label.

Good stuff

Still feeling good after the free shots from the Glenkichie distillery. "Scotch, scotch, scotch. I love scotch. Here it goes now, on down my throat."

Holyrood Park

It doesn't hurt the beauty of a place to have a mountain park in the middle of your city. This was about 2 miles from the center of town, and a mile from our hotel. Chariots of Fire was filmed here.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh was very pretty, but perhaps due to where it sat in our trip, gave both Jennifer and I a kind of unwelcome vibe. It probably didn't hurt that most of the buildings were still recovering from years or coal smoke like this church here.

The Calthorpe Arms, the Cheers of East London

We spend our last night in London with a pint or two in this lovely pub on Grey's Inn Road. The place was about as quaint as you could ever ask for, with 5 people total in the bar, shooting the shit with the bartender. Everyone knew everyone else, and they were all making fun of the guy who was sitting in the corner watching a Family Guy rerun. He laughed mightily as he tried to explain the characters to the other folks. "The dog is called Brian, and he's probably the smartest character on the show..."

It was awesome.

Somewat deflated, still bouyant

Jennifer and I have been in the UK for the past week. Overall it has been a marvellous trip, full of adventure, surprisingly delicious food, and beautiful surroundings. London has maintained itself as one of my all-time favorite big cities, and I can honestly say that there are few places more lovely than England in the sunshine. Unfortunately, that sunshine is not often in steady supply. We were doused heavily on day 2 whilst still in London, then douched the night before and the day of the Brompton World Championship. My tires were apparently not up to the task and I flatted once before the race started, early in the morning, and once midway through lap 2 of the race. Dammit. I was pretty bummed, but we had an absolutely stunning day in Oxford and the Cotswolds, which made up for that in most ways. I'm still conniving a way to eventually work for a year or two in England somewhere-either in a bike shop or better yet, as a bicycle facilities planner. If anyone has any sweet hook-ups let me know. We've had spare Bromptons from Trophy Bikes on loan for the week, and also borrowed Mike's camera (for aesthetic value when coupled with the rack and bag that he had custom built for my steed) so I've snapped far too many pictures to date. Will post them once we return to the motherland for a bit.

Batty at the Citty

Hard to believe that this little guy was right outside of my building the other day. He was parked under the giant picture window about 6 inches off the ground right near the bike racks. I really wanted to pet him, but common decency prevailed and I didn't have the heart to disturb his slumber.

Better make it 4

Jennifer and I spent a great weekend up in East Hampton with Kyle, Marie, Nick and Amy, and some new friends Annika and Joel. This was the first summer time repeat of our famous New Years in the Hamptons adventures of 2008 and 2009. What can I say, it's better to be able to go outside. Day 1 included Patanque (french for bocce), apple picking, beach walking, and the eating of an alarming number of clams. Nick, Jennifer, Marie and I went on a procurement run to get apples from the pick your own joint, as well as some seafood from the local fishmonger. We have historically gotten some delicious local oysters, but when the fishmonger with the green teeth pointed out that there was a "buy 2 dozen, get 1 dozen free" deal on the jumbo cherrystone clams, we opted for that. Thinking of the number of seafood lovers in the mix, we decided to get a total of 4 dozen clams, thinking that we would get one of those dozen for free. A good deal, at $5.50 per dozen. The clam salesman must have interpreted my request for 4 dozen to mean that we wanted 4 dozen clams, plus the additional 24 for free, a fact that I discovered at the house when after polishing off 8 clams the size of my fist, that there were still 64 left. Holy shit that was a lot of clams. We were grilling them and then dousing them with a bit of sauce as they opened. Everyone ate their fill, and then some.

Perhaps the best part is that we discovered that clam shells fit perfectly into the dog-ball chucking thing that they had at the house. We hucked 72 clam shells out into the sea dunes that night. Some of them were mysteriously filled with lighter fluid and newspaper, and somehow managed to make incandescent arcs through the night sky.

Awesome.

We are so pro

Absolutely maxed out bike carrying capacity for the state RR. 4 bikes, 4 guys. Go Magu-chan! I wish I had changed my rear tire the night before. Stupid flat out of the winning break. Bad luck I guess.

Surprising Ma

Since we knew that my mom would probably not get as much of a kick out of a bamboo bicycle as my dad, the other young Ritz's and I decided that a surprise convergence on Ames for her birthday would be the ideal plan. It was was a whirlwind weekend, over Labor Day so we had about 3 days to hang out and kick it family style.

Ian drove back from Madison, and picked up my brother Asa in Iowa City, and then they proceeded directly to Des Moines to pick me up at the airport. It was as seamless an operation as you can expect from my family, and we arrived together in Ames at about 9:30. Claire, who couldn't be there that night called my mom on the phone as Leah was poised with the camera. First Asa walked in to surprise Mom. "Oh, my God Asa!"

Then Ian walked in, "OH MY GOD IAN!!"

Then I walked in, "OH MY GOD AARON!!"

Great success, we surprised the crap out of her. Spent the rest of the weekend eating tasty food, Leah and I made our standard Indian dinner, I smoked a pork shoulder, and my sister's boyfriend DJ made a stupendous rolled pork loin with all the fixins.

Not only that, but Asa and I sprung for a new BB gun after I had the bright idea to "fix" my old one last Christmas. Many tomatoes were killed, much fun was had.

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.