I was a little late to moonrise last night, but managed to catch a glimpse of the Wolf Moon despite the heavy cloud cover.
The Duck! City has been gray and damp the past few days, with 0.13 inch of precip’ in the past 48 hours. On Wednesday I just beat a short downpour home as I wrapped up a run, and yesterday I caught a little sleet in the chops while cycling through the foothills.
Climbing into the Elena Gallegos Open Space I saw a couple of Albuquerque Police Department vehicles in the parking lot. The officers waved at me, and I waved back. If they thought I must have been drunk to be cycling in January — rain jacket, tuque, tights, winter shoes — they didn’t oblige me to perform the Stupid Human Tricks or empty the wallet I wasn’t carrying. (I had a $20 in the Ziploc bag that keeps my phone dry, but shh, that’s top secret.)
It’s definitely looking runny out there this morning. And there seems to be another atmospheric river rolling in.
I have fenders, and rain gear. But maybe what I need is a kayak.
Mad Blog Media 
Naw forget about a kayak POG. Why, a guy like you would fare better on a standup board. Your ass won’t go numb and you can see ahead of you and elect which crash line you want to take. Plus you could cackle to anyone within earshot “surfs up dude!”
Cowabunga, baby! Speaking of numb asses, I see Pancake Face just got slapped in his tiny little venom-spigot with another $83.3 million judgment. It would be nice to think that this might shut him up for a while, but we know better.
He does have an incentive, however. This shit is getting expensive.
Longboard Herb: Couldn’t help but notice your moniker and immediately thought of one of my heroes, Jimmy Buffett (who flew west last Fall), and your likely age/generation.
A presumption on my part, but believe you might enjoy his “The Oldest Surfer on the Beach”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKf7xtR7KQo
As I’m 40 days away from 77, my goal is to be the oldest MTB’er on the trail. Rule #1 is FUN! 🙂
Thanks for the link JD. Although I’m “riding” pretty flat water on my standup boards instead of surf; I do share one thing with Jimmy. We both scored several of a very limited number of hand laid Osceola boards years back. Designed to mimic the old wood craft used for fishing the flats. Ours were Kevlar layups and super stout compared to the easy denting glass boards in SUP.
Young’uns don’t realize sound will carry well over still water. I’ll be cruising a local lake and hear some paddlers say “check out that dude on the rad board!”. As I get closer to them and they spot my white hair the next thing heard is “holy shit…it’s an OLD guy!” Yup. And like the song I ain’t in any particular hurry.
You learn something new every day around Patrick’s pickle barrel. Good thing there isn’t much water around here. If there was, paddle boarding would be another rabbit hole I could go down deep into. It looks like serious fun!
I was working in the garage this morning putting a 46-30 crank on the Salsa La Cruz, in honor of my ancientness and the fact that I just don’t ride fast any more. More often than not, I ride half fast. Still, a 46-11 top gear ratio on that bike with the monster tires I typically run still gives me around 112 gear inches, which is more than enough. And the low end, depending on which tires I am running, is in the low twenty gear inches. The compact crank that was on that bike will be transplanted to the CAAD-5 when its obsolete crank and bottom bracket dies of old age. Unless, of course, I do first.
I noticed the Long Haul Trucker that I rode through muck and grime on my birthday looks like a piece of Mud Artwork. Needs a serious bath.
The Salsa surgery went well except that the fifteen to twenty year old bottom bracket I had sitting in a box (it was on the bike when I bought it in the aughts) was apparently so old that a plastic sleeve over the bearing that the crank pipe slides through disintegrated when I pushed the pipe on the new crank through the bottom bracket, resulting in a case of the crank flopping around. So I ended up getting a new bottom bracket as well but those don’t cost much. I’ll give that bike a test ride this afternoon, weather permitting. I got a low end Shimano crank but it looks nice and does its job just as well as the high end stuff.
I like that 46/30T setup. Got it on two bikes and plan to go there on a couple more. IRD does a couple nice ones, and Merry Sales does too, under their New Albion label. Incidentally, the Soma Fab guys have an inventory-reduction sale going on this weekend, with all manner of deep discounts.
Today I was rocking a Sugino triple on the Soma Saga, canti’ edition. I like that setup, too. 48/36/24T.
My Long Haul Trucker is a 3×9 with that same set of 48-36-24 chainrings. Just about perfect.
Along with Herb, your “crank pipe” descriptor peaked my curiosity as well. First, it had me wondering the BB that you were installing. Could it be an old square taper with the plastic debris guard that was disintegrating? Naw, those old debris guards are made of a plastic with more polyethylene-like molecular chains in it. They flex well and take the test of time better. I’ve still got one or two around in the parts barrel. Besides, I don’t believe Mr. Spencer would still be using a square taper like at least one of us. Then I thought of BB’s I knew that used plastic separator sleeves between the bearings and suspected that what you were installing was most likely an external bearing BB like an FSA / Truvativ Mega-Exo BB or maybe a SRAM GXP? Would this be correct? What BB were you able to get to replace the faulty one?
It is interesting to note that when how searching for old bike data, Sheldon’s site is now “really” ancient stuff and because he has been gone a very long time and no longer benefits us with his generous updating, his site isn’t really referenced to as it once was. I haven’t looked but I wonder if Mr. Zinn has a place for stockpiled bike tech information?
Crank pipe? Help Old Herb out Khal. Same as a bottom bracket axle? It’s gotta feel great to keep one of your bike family running. BTW…I pretty much ride half-assed too. Wait…I think you said half fast?
Before I collected the “Mad Dog” moniker in the Eighties I called my little cartooning sideline “Half Fast Graphics.” Shoulda kept it — it would’ve meshed nicely with my cycling career, such as it was.
Well, you mentioned it, and my imagination kicked in. So, how did you get the Mad Dog moniker? Was it your riding style in cyclocross?
Bottom brackets used to be these solid things with a tapped hole in each end. Now they are a one inch diameter, thin walled pipe that is fixed to the right crankarm. So I call it a crank pipe, I guess. Not a crack pipe…..