A very good Friday

Nailed it.

The Soma Pescadero is in the house!

Also, on the road. We took our maiden voyage this morning, a rolling 20-miler around the Duck! City foothills to see what was what.

And what it was was … an excellent first impression.

The build goes 24.5 pounds, or just under a pound lighter than the New Albion Privateer. The feel is friskier — shorter, shaped chainstays, a skosh less rake, a nicely sporty ride.

The wheels may be a tad burly, but hey, this is Albuquerque; the roads are broken and bad, and I run 38mm tires at low pressures to keep the fillings in my teeth and the teeth in my head.

Drivetrain is nine-speed double for now, 46/30T x 11-32T, and I can see that it’s gonna take a few outings to fine-tune the friction shifting. Not the machinery; my operation of it. The Privateer is seven-speed, so basically I can just slap the shifter and be on the proper cog. Nine cogs want a little more delicacy of touch.

Who knows? I may go to seven-speed on the Pescadero, too. How many cogs does a geezer really need, anyway? Three? One for up, one for down, one for flat. You need more than that? Get an e-bike. Or a car.

And the Paul Components Racer centerpulls? Disco.

First change I make will be the saddle. This Soma Hishou is a perennial stand-in for (and an homage to) a classic Selle Italia Flite, of which I am all out at present. Further purchases may require additional authorization from The Management.

More as we learn it.

In the meantime, the best thing about the Soma Pescadero is that it took what remains of my mind off fascism for 98 refreshing minutes.

I was framed (and forked)!

Soma Fabrications has a sale going on.

My friends at Soma Fabrications are knocking 20 percent off their already reasonably priced frames and forks, which makes them a deal and a half for anyone in the market for a new rig.

Click the link to get the deets. And you’ll wanna move fast, because this sale ends tomorrow.

Me, I’ve finally gotten my paws on a Soma Pescadero, the frameset I originally wanted to review for Adventure Cyclist back in 2021.

The Pescadero was out of stock back then, and what I wound up with instead was a New Albion Privateer, which proved to be an excellent bike, so much so that I bought it after writing the review. And it remains the bike I ride most often.

But I’m really looking forward to throwing a leg over the top tube of this Pescadero.

I’m a few parts short of a party at the moment — the Racer centerpulls I ordered from Paul Components are taking the scenic route to El Rancho Pendejo, and I’m trying to decide whether to perform a complicated three-way transplant to put wheels on the Pescadero or just buy a brand-new wheelset from the good folks at Velocity USA.

I used an old pair of wheels on the Privateer — Mavic Open Pro rims and Shimano 600 hubs — and I could go that route again, robbing a similar wheelset from a Steelman Eurocross or the Soma Double Cross. But I like those bikes as they are.

And that three-way swap I mentioned would involve moving the Double Cross’s wheels to the Pescadero; shifting a Soma Saga’s wheels to the DC; and giving an unused Velocity Cliffhanger/LX wheelset to the Saga. Some redishing seems likely; brake adjustments are a certainty. What we shade-tree mechanics like to call “too much like work.”

So … yeah. We’ll see. No rush on wheels if a feller ain’t got no brakes. But all y’all will want to get busy if you want a good price on a new whip. Tell ’em The Dog sent you.

Go fish

The latest iteration of the Pescadero from Soma Fabrications.

Ho ho ho, etc. The Santas at Soma Fabrications have a fresh catch of Pescadero road framesets for all you good girls and boys this Christmas.

The Pescadero is a “road-sport” steed, designed with 35mm rubber in mind but good to 38mm, my personal tire width of choice. And did I mention that it takes rim brakes? Your choice of centerpulls or dual pivots.

This was the frameset I wanted to review Back in the Day® for Adventure Cyclist, but it was out of stock. So I went instead for a first cousin from the Merry Sales family, the New Albion Privateer, which has become one of my favorite bikes for the mean streets of The Duck! City. (You’ll see mine, black with silver rack, in the photo carousel.)

Hm. Decisions, decisions. I need a new MacBook Pro to carry on The Work, but another resident of the San Francisco area has annoyed me by leaping clear across the country to kiss the Pestilence-Erect’s ring (hope you packed plenty mouthwash, Timmy me lad).

Maybe I need to redirect my holiday spending. Some might say I have too many two-wheelers already, but I have plenty of Macs, too. And as we all know, the proper number of bikes for a man is n+1.