So it appears that someone thought that the Wherever trail head deserved a floor lamp. I shall determine that there were not electrical outlets in the vicinity to see if the lamp actually worked. It must be as you infer, the phantom floor lamp hooligan at work again. Sporadically placing artistic home decor in areas not normally associated with their use, in the interest of sucking in those with artistic inklings. How does it feel to be sucked in?
Along the lines of sucking, I hope that your air induction system is recovering from the pitfalls of seasonal blockage.
So I’m climbing the road to La Cueva Picnic Site, which has been locked up for the winter until recently, and I see all this crap piled by one of the bear-proof trash bins, and as I’m checking it out this runner trots past shaking his head and says, “Yeah, I don’t get it either. Just as soon as they open the gate. …”
Down near the bottom of the road, where you don’t have to pay a fee, there’s a Sprinter parked in a pullout, dude sitting outside with a beverage, fiddling with a laptop. Up top, where the fee applies, is the garbage. Someone got his money’s worth. I’m just not quite sure who.
I suspect that a few of the visitors to this site, has a moment in their past when they parted with goods that were set aside in a legally inappropriate location. I recall some fine coniferous tree clippings that I couldn’t keep an elderly relative of mine from dragging out of a truck and placing in a logging area slash pile. Or that other time that might have been mentioned on this fine blog in the distant past, ….. But to part with that fine floor lamp that POG is so vogue-esely posed within, in a location that is obviously not conducive to new owner reclamation, I’m not sure my heart (or my elderly relative who is so easy to place blame upon) would allow.
I’d love to know the litterbug’s thinking, if any. The traditional Duck! City practice is to hurl unwanted items out of a moving vehicle, and you can’t get up much speed on La Cueva’s beat-to-shit road, even when you’re descending back to La Luz/Tramway.
I need to pick a destination before I pick a steed, methinks. Got to pick some brains around here.
But yep, that’s the Soma Saga, the rim-brake edition. I’ve never been all that happy with the brakes on this bike, a pair of Cane Creek cantis snatched off the Voodoo Nakisi when I put Paul’s Neo-Retro and Touring cantis on that beast. I’ve got a couple other options in my Big Box O’ Brakes that I need to investigate.
The Soma Double Cross might be a better bet for a quick overnight, if I need to deal with some gravel roads. Considerably lighter than either Saga, with 35mm Donnelly tires suited to both asphalt and gravel, and a ridiculously low end of like 19 gear inches.
See if you can scrounge up some old Mafac canti’s. Then you won’t need a bell or horn or even a primal scream since the second you apply them fekkers, the squealing will begin at a frequency that brings down jet fighter planes. I worked on them in the 70’s and learned to take a looong lunch whenever a French bike came in for repairs. If the brakes didn’t get your goat then the Sniv-lex plastic derailleurs and levers would.
Haw. I had some of the Weinmanns on a Pinarello. Required careful daily adjustments with a Crescent wrench and ball-peen hammer, as I recall.
These days, as I’m sure you know, IRD makes a canti called Cafam (read it backwards). Much improved over the inspiration, with Yokozuna cartridge pads and easy adjustability. I have a set on the Double Cross and another set in the Brake Box.
And of course there’s the Paul Comp Neo-Retro and Touring cantis, which are just fuggin’ awesome. I got ’em on a bunch of bikes. Stop you before you even think you need to slow down.
Geez Louise- those are some expensive brakes but likely worth it for those that go fast enough that they actually need to stop NOW! As for me and my current slow bike speed, I only need brakes if I’m going down a big hill and want to moderate (chicken-out) my speed so’s I don’t catch fire or break the sound barrier. But for some reason (weak minded) I don’t encounter many big hills on my rides these days. Maybe they got worn down after all these years grinding poor Old Herb into tachycardia.
Ayuh, they are some pricey doodads. But they’re handsome and they work.
I particularly dig the Paul Components brakes. I use Neo-Retro, Touring, and MiniMoto wherever possible (and affordable) throughout The Fleet. I’d like to use the MiniMoto on the Saga, but it won’t quite clear a 38mm Schwalbe Little Big Ben tire and its 45mm fender. I have a pair of 33mm Soma Everwears handy, but I really like that fatter tire.
I could pull the Neo-Retro and Touring off the Voodoo Nakisi, which I’m starting to distrust since its fork went wonky on me. Decisions, decisions. …
Seems like the Cafam brakes are the answer since you already have a set in the brake box. That would not be the case if you would have only left Herb and I alone in the garage for ten minutes or so.
Ho, ho. This is why no bicycle people enter the garage unescorted. Mopping up the drool afterward (and double-checking the inventory) is so tiresome.
I could do a Cafam on the front wheel, but on the back a Cafam might interfere with panniers; clearance issues are why I use Paul’s Touring cantis on the rear of the Voodoo Nakisi and Steelman Eurocross. I’ve clipped the rear Cafam on the Double Cross with a shoe now than then. But that’s a smaller frameset (55cm, I think, as opposed to the 58cm Saga).
When I was rocking Weinmanns on the Pinarello I collected an ugly gash or two during dismounts/remounts in cyclocross before figuring out that I needed something a little less prominent braking that rear wheel.
There was a world rally driver by the name of Stig Blomvquist (sp?) that made the comment a time or two that the reason he was so fast was that he didn’t use the brakes. I have a tendency to be kind of like that. I don’t wear out the brake pads on by bikes, they end up just oxidize and getting harder. This isn’t a problem unless they are cold. And if my toe-in is off, the pads on my primary v-brake ride can really howl. As for discs, I’d have them if I had them, but until the other bikes and brakes are worn out, I likely won’t have them.
and remember if you’re out on a ride with me, and we’re starting out on that steep swooping descent, my brakes may not work as well as yours’. Yuk yuk yuk.
cafaM. That’s cute of IRD. Anybody remember the Scott Pederson spring assist brakes?
I picked up a Fondriest steel frame triple crank road bike earlier today at a thrift store for a song. I sing like flying manure at a fly factory so you can bet I got it cheap.
Man, I haven’t seen a Fondriest in forever. I gotta start hitting the yard sales and thrift shops.
Well, we went from a dumped floor lamp at a picnic site to a Fondriest bike in 17 comments. Is that some kind of record?
I think it demonstrates how determined we can be when it comes to ignoring the news.
Speaking of which, too bad Manhattan Fats decided against taking the stand. Lord, would that have been must-see TV. His shysters couldn’t keep him on message with a shock collar cinched down tight around his undersized nutsack. It would be like watching Ned Beatty on ketamine playing Captain Queeg.
See, there are all these stumblebum notions wandering around in my head and every now and then a few of them get together for drinks. Once they start singing, the barkeep gives them the old heave-ho, and then suddenly they become your problem.
“Ned Beatty? Ketamine? I think this boyo needs an all-access ticket to Nurse Ratched’s Cuckoo’s Nest & Edison Medicine Emporium. Right this way, buddy, I’ll show you where we keep the white tuxedos with the wraparound arms. …”
And your own custom made rubber bite stick. But, I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. That was stolen from, well, somebody. W. C. perhaps?
I heard that frontal lobotomy/bottle in front of me joke repeatedly from one of my nuke facility buddies at work in the Bomb Factory. We always joked that all the Human Reliability Program screening demonstrated was that we were just crazy enough to work on nukes, but not so crazy as to not be allowed to work on nukes.
One year, just to goof the system, I went in for my annual psych evaluation wearing an aluminum foil hat (couldn’t find tin) and carrying my umbrella wrapped in aluminum foil and connected with a wire to a little box. All covered with little black dots. Told the people in Occupational Medicine that I was looking for Black Holes, given the CERN Large Hadron Collider had just gone operational and some unscientific folks claimed it would make black holes that would swallow the earth. So my job was to look for black holes to test the theory. The psych nurse fell out of her chair laughing. Some of the lab protective force guys (guys with the guns and dogs) were in there too, and their eyes got real wide.
If you need Khal, I think I know where a really cool spherical reflective metallic hat might be. It’s a lot cooler than a foil hat. That is if POG hasn’t already retrieved it and is using it as backyard decor.
But good on you (Khal) for humoring those in the system. Levity is a fine thing. A couple of days after being hired as a temp Geo Tech’s Aide by a corporation once, I was informed that I was going to be moved to another office. They supplied me with several moving boxes to move all the stuff in my office (2 days remember). So not wanting the moving folks to be disappointed, I packaged the few things I had and made sure that I labeled them accordingly. I recall coming in the Monday after the weekend move and hearing folks asking about who was in the office with the shrunken heads and the congealed monkey brains.
Help, he’s steppin’ into the Phantom Zone Place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned His beacon’s been moved under moon and star Where is he to go, now that he’s gone too far?
Mad Blog Media 
So it appears that someone thought that the Wherever trail head deserved a floor lamp. I shall determine that there were not electrical outlets in the vicinity to see if the lamp actually worked. It must be as you infer, the phantom floor lamp hooligan at work again. Sporadically placing artistic home decor in areas not normally associated with their use, in the interest of sucking in those with artistic inklings. How does it feel to be sucked in?
Along the lines of sucking, I hope that your air induction system is recovering from the pitfalls of seasonal blockage.
I must go now and find my own Wherever.
So I’m climbing the road to La Cueva Picnic Site, which has been locked up for the winter until recently, and I see all this crap piled by one of the bear-proof trash bins, and as I’m checking it out this runner trots past shaking his head and says, “Yeah, I don’t get it either. Just as soon as they open the gate. …”
Well, it is a throw it away world. Probably bought it at wally world.
Down near the bottom of the road, where you don’t have to pay a fee, there’s a Sprinter parked in a pullout, dude sitting outside with a beverage, fiddling with a laptop. Up top, where the fee applies, is the garbage. Someone got his money’s worth. I’m just not quite sure who.
I suspect that a few of the visitors to this site, has a moment in their past when they parted with goods that were set aside in a legally inappropriate location. I recall some fine coniferous tree clippings that I couldn’t keep an elderly relative of mine from dragging out of a truck and placing in a logging area slash pile. Or that other time that might have been mentioned on this fine blog in the distant past, ….. But to part with that fine floor lamp that POG is so vogue-esely posed within, in a location that is obviously not conducive to new owner reclamation, I’m not sure my heart (or my elderly relative who is so easy to place blame upon) would allow.
I’d love to know the litterbug’s thinking, if any. The traditional Duck! City practice is to hurl unwanted items out of a moving vehicle, and you can’t get up much speed on La Cueva’s beat-to-shit road, even when you’re descending back to La Luz/Tramway.
It looks like the Saga got its turn to go play. Is it ready for an overnighter?
I need to pick a destination before I pick a steed, methinks. Got to pick some brains around here.
But yep, that’s the Soma Saga, the rim-brake edition. I’ve never been all that happy with the brakes on this bike, a pair of Cane Creek cantis snatched off the Voodoo Nakisi when I put Paul’s Neo-Retro and Touring cantis on that beast. I’ve got a couple other options in my Big Box O’ Brakes that I need to investigate.
The Soma Double Cross might be a better bet for a quick overnight, if I need to deal with some gravel roads. Considerably lighter than either Saga, with 35mm Donnelly tires suited to both asphalt and gravel, and a ridiculously low end of like 19 gear inches.
See if you can scrounge up some old Mafac canti’s. Then you won’t need a bell or horn or even a primal scream since the second you apply them fekkers, the squealing will begin at a frequency that brings down jet fighter planes. I worked on them in the 70’s and learned to take a looong lunch whenever a French bike came in for repairs. If the brakes didn’t get your goat then the Sniv-lex plastic derailleurs and levers would.
Haw. I had some of the Weinmanns on a Pinarello. Required careful daily adjustments with a Crescent wrench and ball-peen hammer, as I recall.
These days, as I’m sure you know, IRD makes a canti called Cafam (read it backwards). Much improved over the inspiration, with Yokozuna cartridge pads and easy adjustability. I have a set on the Double Cross and another set in the Brake Box.
And of course there’s the Paul Comp Neo-Retro and Touring cantis, which are just fuggin’ awesome. I got ’em on a bunch of bikes. Stop you before you even think you need to slow down.
Rim brakes are so yesterday.
Geez Louise- those are some expensive brakes but likely worth it for those that go fast enough that they actually need to stop NOW! As for me and my current slow bike speed, I only need brakes if I’m going down a big hill and want to moderate (chicken-out) my speed so’s I don’t catch fire or break the sound barrier. But for some reason (weak minded) I don’t encounter many big hills on my rides these days. Maybe they got worn down after all these years grinding poor Old Herb into tachycardia.
Ayuh, they are some pricey doodads. But they’re handsome and they work.
I particularly dig the Paul Components brakes. I use Neo-Retro, Touring, and MiniMoto wherever possible (and affordable) throughout The Fleet. I’d like to use the MiniMoto on the Saga, but it won’t quite clear a 38mm Schwalbe Little Big Ben tire and its 45mm fender. I have a pair of 33mm Soma Everwears handy, but I really like that fatter tire.
I could pull the Neo-Retro and Touring off the Voodoo Nakisi, which I’m starting to distrust since its fork went wonky on me. Decisions, decisions. …
Seems like the Cafam brakes are the answer since you already have a set in the brake box. That would not be the case if you would have only left Herb and I alone in the garage for ten minutes or so.
Ho, ho. This is why no bicycle people enter the garage unescorted. Mopping up the drool afterward (and double-checking the inventory) is so tiresome.
I could do a Cafam on the front wheel, but on the back a Cafam might interfere with panniers; clearance issues are why I use Paul’s Touring cantis on the rear of the Voodoo Nakisi and Steelman Eurocross. I’ve clipped the rear Cafam on the Double Cross with a shoe now than then. But that’s a smaller frameset (55cm, I think, as opposed to the 58cm Saga).
When I was rocking Weinmanns on the Pinarello I collected an ugly gash or two during dismounts/remounts in cyclocross before figuring out that I needed something a little less prominent braking that rear wheel.
There was a world rally driver by the name of Stig Blomvquist (sp?) that made the comment a time or two that the reason he was so fast was that he didn’t use the brakes. I have a tendency to be kind of like that. I don’t wear out the brake pads on by bikes, they end up just oxidize and getting harder. This isn’t a problem unless they are cold. And if my toe-in is off, the pads on my primary v-brake ride can really howl. As for discs, I’d have them if I had them, but until the other bikes and brakes are worn out, I likely won’t have them.
and remember if you’re out on a ride with me, and we’re starting out on that steep swooping descent, my brakes may not work as well as yours’. Yuk yuk yuk.
cafaM. That’s cute of IRD. Anybody remember the Scott Pederson spring assist brakes?
I picked up a Fondriest steel frame triple crank road bike earlier today at a thrift store for a song. I sing like flying manure at a fly factory so you can bet I got it cheap.
Man, I haven’t seen a Fondriest in forever. I gotta start hitting the yard sales and thrift shops.
Well, we went from a dumped floor lamp at a picnic site to a Fondriest bike in 17 comments. Is that some kind of record?
I think it demonstrates how determined we can be when it comes to ignoring the news.
Speaking of which, too bad Manhattan Fats decided against taking the stand. Lord, would that have been must-see TV. His shysters couldn’t keep him on message with a shock collar cinched down tight around his undersized nutsack. It would be like watching Ned Beatty on ketamine playing Captain Queeg.
Ned Beatty? Ketamine? Sweet Jeezus you reached out beyond human comprehension for that one. But Manhattan Fats will stick with us a looong time .
See, there are all these stumblebum notions wandering around in my head and every now and then a few of them get together for drinks. Once they start singing, the barkeep gives them the old heave-ho, and then suddenly they become your problem.
“Ned Beatty? Ketamine? I think this boyo needs an all-access ticket to Nurse Ratched’s Cuckoo’s Nest & Edison Medicine Emporium. Right this way, buddy, I’ll show you where we keep the white tuxedos with the wraparound arms. …”
And your own custom made rubber bite stick. But, I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. That was stolen from, well, somebody. W. C. perhaps?
I heard that frontal lobotomy/bottle in front of me joke repeatedly from one of my nuke facility buddies at work in the Bomb Factory. We always joked that all the Human Reliability Program screening demonstrated was that we were just crazy enough to work on nukes, but not so crazy as to not be allowed to work on nukes.
One year, just to goof the system, I went in for my annual psych evaluation wearing an aluminum foil hat (couldn’t find tin) and carrying my umbrella wrapped in aluminum foil and connected with a wire to a little box. All covered with little black dots. Told the people in Occupational Medicine that I was looking for Black Holes, given the CERN Large Hadron Collider had just gone operational and some unscientific folks claimed it would make black holes that would swallow the earth. So my job was to look for black holes to test the theory. The psych nurse fell out of her chair laughing. Some of the lab protective force guys (guys with the guns and dogs) were in there too, and their eyes got real wide.
They still passed me.
If you need Khal, I think I know where a really cool spherical reflective metallic hat might be. It’s a lot cooler than a foil hat. That is if POG hasn’t already retrieved it and is using it as backyard decor.
But good on you (Khal) for humoring those in the system. Levity is a fine thing. A couple of days after being hired as a temp Geo Tech’s Aide by a corporation once, I was informed that I was going to be moved to another office. They supplied me with several moving boxes to move all the stuff in my office (2 days remember). So not wanting the moving folks to be disappointed, I packaged the few things I had and made sure that I labeled them accordingly. I recall coming in the Monday after the weekend move and hearing folks asking about who was in the office with the shrunken heads and the congealed monkey brains.
Help, he’s steppin’ into the Phantom Zone
Place is a madhouse, feels like being cloned
His beacon’s been moved under moon and star
Where is he to go, now that he’s gone too far?