Bike Porn: Step #317 The Diaper
while at the UK version of home depot (what they call a "DIY store"), i found this length of foam insulation for 50p (97.45¢ us) that i think is meant to keep some tube that transports liquids in your house either hot or cold, assumedly hot. so anyways, 50p later (about 97.45¢ us) ive got this gray tube that i figure im going to make a top tube pad from (what chicago wig calls a
ding pag). so i cut it down to size (about 18 inches), and strap it on with these gay purple velcro thingies that jody gave to me. only it looks real, well, gay (both in the san francisco and derogatory senses). so i dig arround in "my collection of old cloth things that i dont use for their intended use, but could some day be used for something else" collection, and find this tote bag, donated by a friend, that sports a wannabe keith haring print.
the colors are SO bad, that i can just never wear this thing (my normal bag being my timbuk2- for local shopping i use my trusty trader joes tote), but when i wrap the already-terrible-gray-foam pad with purple velcro straps, the thing just magically becomes amazing! so i had to do it. partially inspired by the keith haring edition cinelli lazer (above right), i now sport what is perhaps the most ugly / awesome totally extraneous item "the purple monster" has ever had. its held on by 3 pink straps (accending in gayness), two of which are covered by the handles i cut from the tote. i call it the diaper becuase its got this bunch of cloth on the underside that is from not cutting the bag down to size, and instead just tucking it away. it makes this baggy looking bottom that, at least initially, resembled what a diaper might look like, but for a bicycle. (also pictured are the new track chain and miche cog- sadly, the bb was english thread, and this is pre-modern era sizing - aka french, so all metric (35x1 mm) - so its nigh impossible to replace, nor worth the time / energy.)
yeah...
posted by carlito sway at 10:58
Two Skullz
matt bibby is at it again, this time with some sick tattoo flash action. i was at his house a week or two back, and i got to see the completed peice... yeah, its that sick.
check out his
blog for complete coverage. (also below that, you can see the "work in progress" for the a2 he did of him inking me...)
ive tried to comission him to bust some of his sickness on the underside of my riding cap, so we shall see... hopefully his hollywood-like, globe-trotting, jet-setting lifestyle offers him enough free time to pencil me hat in...
posted by carlito sway at 08:47
Quote of the Day
"The logic of dependency ratios, of course, works equally powerfully in reverse. If your economy benefits by having a big bulge of working-age people, then your economy will have a harder time of it when that bulge generation retires, and there are relatively few workers to take their place. For China, the next few decades will be more difficult. "China will peak with a 1-to-2.6 dependency ratio between 2010 and 2015," Bloom says. "But then it's back to a little over 1-to-1.5 by 2050. That's a pretty dramatic change. Thirty per cent of the Chinese population will be over sixty by 2050. That's four hundred and thirty-two million people."
Demographers sometimes say that China is in a race to get rich before it gets old."-Malcolm Gladwells latest article in The New Yorker,"
The Risk Pool", is readable
here. its a rather interesting article on the effects of spreading social security (retirement, health care, etc) throughout like-market companies to lessen the depressing effects of an ageing workforce, levied against a youthfull one.
posted by carlito sway at 10:15
Bike Porn: Miche Technology Z16 Track Ring
since im upgrading to a track chain (1/8), it takes a wider track cog and chain ring, to minimize left to right movement (think small tooth in a big whole = baggy). normal chains are thinner and less rigid, allowing left to right movement to handle the angles incurred while shifting. apparently, track chains use a "full bushing" design, while normal 3/36 chians are "bushing-less."
since my options where miche and shimano, and im not at all happy with my rusted-to-my-frame shimano bottom bracket, i went with the miche option, one tooth shy of my current track ring (17), for a slightly taller gear ratio, aka slower on the start, and faster at the peak.
the cool thing about this track ring, though, is that its two piece; instead of a threaded cog (like normal), its got a threaded seat that then accepts the miche cog. the upside is that, when this one wears out, or i feel like changing the tooth count, i can simply unscrew the lock ring, and pop it right off.
posted by carlito sway at 08:47
Bike Porn: Campagnolo Centaur Bottom Bracket
ive just ordered and received a new campy bb for my peugeot, to replace the lower quality and ill fitting shimano; for some reason, you have to mate same-company parts, or things dont quite seat well. (even my flatmate nick had to source shimano trigger-style shifters because his raleigh uses shimano derailleurs.)
when i pulled this bad boy out of the package yesterday, i was shocked at the quality of its build: machined billet aluminum and steel, with tollerances mandela would be proud of. i told the guys "hey whao, this is really nice!" and all the mechanics came over and went "hey, can i...?" so they each turn it over, felt its weight, passed it arround. they all knew what was up.
since they were having trouble getting the shimano bb out, i asked if i could take it home for the night and show it off. thus this blog. sad how something so sexy will never really be seen by anyone, and, i guess, only i will know its there...
posted by carlito sway at 06:09
Abergavenny, Wales
just got back from an awesome weekend getaway, to this little teeny tiny town-lette, called Abergavenny, which i take to mean "Upon the River Gavenny" (seeing as aberdeen and abercrombie are likely titled). the whole weekend was consumed by basically either a) relaxing (which involved consuming food and booze) or b) performing journeys to procure food and booze, thus relegating us back to stage "A".
basically, this place was amazing. the closest neighboring building was about a mile away, this place used to be an old mill, it had at least 7 beds, at least 5 bedrooms, easily slept 15 people (6 couples, & 3 castaways), massive chillout side of the house which had a separate tv room / lounge and a separate pong tourney room (although the stinking english call it "table tennis") a regulation sized pool table (think pool table on steroids) and a kickin fireplace (replete with "pile-o-logs" out back, to be split with giant man-sized axe) and big soft comfy couches. the dinner table easily sat us all, their were lots of balloons, a working piano and organ, and this awesome glass room that poked out the side of the building (i assume where the axel for the grind stone came in) that had two chairs and all these windows that opened out on the river (you can see it on the left side of the building, above water). all you could see was river, forest, and the footbridge a bit down the river (from whence this photo was taken), that gave access to the only pub in town. (once across the river, it was a good mile hike into "town" if you could call it that. didnt even have a stop sign, but there was a place were you could either go left or straight, so i suppose that constitutes an "intersection.")
heres the
photo set on flikr which is currently just the shots from my camera, but soonly will be populated by as many people as are willing to upload fhotos of the weekend (creating an account on flikr and managing photos is so complicated, its discouraging).
posted by carlito sway at 15:45
while at the UK version of home depot (what they call a "DIY store"), i found this length of foam insulation for 50p (97.45¢ us) that i think is meant to keep some tube that transports liquids in your house either hot or cold, assumedly hot. so anyways, 50p later (about 97.45¢ us) ive got this gray tube that i figure im going to make a top tube pad from (what chicago wig calls a ding pag). so i cut it down to size (about 18 inches), and strap it on with these gay purple velcro thingies that jody gave to me. only it looks real, well, gay (both in the san francisco and derogatory senses). so i dig arround in "my collection of old cloth things that i dont use for their intended use, but could some day be used for something else" collection, and find this tote bag, donated by a friend, that sports a wannabe keith haring print.
the colors are SO bad, that i can just never wear this thing (my normal bag being my timbuk2- for local shopping i use my trusty trader joes tote), but when i wrap the already-terrible-gray-foam pad with purple velcro straps, the thing just magically becomes amazing! so i had to do it. partially inspired by the keith haring edition cinelli lazer (above right), i now sport what is perhaps the most ugly / awesome totally extraneous item "the purple monster" has ever had. its held on by 3 pink straps (accending in gayness), two of which are covered by the handles i cut from the tote. i call it the diaper becuase its got this bunch of cloth on the underside that is from not cutting the bag down to size, and instead just tucking it away. it makes this baggy looking bottom that, at least initially, resembled what a diaper might look like, but for a bicycle. (also pictured are the new track chain and miche cog- sadly, the bb was english thread, and this is pre-modern era sizing - aka french, so all metric (35x1 mm) - so its nigh impossible to replace, nor worth the time / energy.)
